If they believe they're creating "a machine god" and that it's better it's their machine god than someone else's (which, given the other contenders, I tend to agree with), then all the corollaries you mention are mostly irrelevant.

Whether you believe they're creating a machine god is irrelevant. They believe that they are. It would be helpful if you could create an actually good argument for why they cannot or are not creating a machine god, but it turns out there are no good arguments for why it's impossible to do so. And so... they shall try.