It really doesn’t matter what it ‘is’ or if it makes sense to speak of things in moral categories. There are plenty of ‘tools’ that are/should be restricted, from guns to Tucker Carlson.

It can obviously have some effect on the so-called ‘real world’, or people wouldn’t pour money into developing & using it. It would be a unique feat to be powerful with no chance of any of the effects being harmful.

From there, it’s just arithmetics: what harms and benefits do we expect with what probabilities, and how does this change depending on the distribution scheme?