Engineers want their work to be an extension their autonomy as users, and their bosses want it to extend the will of capital.
Whether tech is a tool or a muzzle comes down to its mode of production. The freedoms afforded by open source for example are attributable to worker empowerment.
If AI has a future in a free and equitable society, it will be built by engineers and scientists. Models offered by capital, often explicitly to disempower or replace workers, will only give us better muzzles.