Benefits of developing self replicating technology exceeds all other possibilities.
If it takes 10 years of high investment to develop a set of machines that can duplicate itself and deliver a large and increasing set of goods and services ( from mining to manufacture to delivery) and it takes 2 weeks to produce a copy, then within 2 further years, there can be one for every person. That outcome exceeds anything else.
It ends poverty (every person has automated systems to create whatever they responsibly choose).
It allows solutions to climate change (at several different levels - putting one such machine on the moon allows us to develop space technology - mass can be ground launched from the moon into earth orbit without chemical rockets {managing climate change only requires the ability to alter the amount of sunlight reaching the earth's surface by less than 1%} - using linear electric motors - as there is no atmosphere).
It allows empowerment of individual security and liberty.
And it is not simple.
Liberty must be within the constraints required for survival.
If liberty is to survive then it must be accompanied by responsibility - anything less is self terminating.
All levels of structure (physical, social, intellectual) have minimum levels of boundaries for survival - and at higher levels those boundaries are approximated by things like morals and ethics. So as creativity and diversity increase, the situation become extremely complex. Nothing simple.
We must look deeply at evolution to see that all advances in complexity are predicated on cooperation. Competition drives systems to simplicity. Complexity demands cooperation if it is to survive, and that must be non-naive cooperation.
And it does appear to be the only option that has any realistic probability of long term survival with reasonable degrees of freedom.
