I think that you are being overly cynical. Yes, we are aware of the kinds of things you mean, like all the trainings we have to go through at work these days in order to insulate themselves from lawsuits. But just because something can serve that purpose does not mean that is the only goal or purpose that it is meant to achieve.

Even from a purely profit-motive stance, if a company's model helps a terrorist develop and deliver a bioweapon, no amount of lawer-driven tests will provide enough protection to prevent that company from getting gutted ruthlessly from government on down

I agree, which is a different job from what I expect most AI ethicists imagined it would be.