Yeah absolutely, these ones focused in trying to study alignment because it seemed like the most compelling problem for various reasons, but these ones had an expectation that there would be beings out fighting the immediate issues, just as there are beings with climate change as their cause area, or biosafety. People who decide their cause area is the only one that matters are being silly at best.

Incidentally, consciousness / sentience are kind of side notes, properties intelligent systems are capable, but not a requirement to be smart enough to tile the light cone with processors grinding out ever higher prime numbers.