they pretty much saved the whole AI industry
Sam Altman could've vanished from the face of the Earth, and AI would be fine. There are so many big players (including Microsoft) in the game and so many other AI researchers that things would've likely continued going strong.
A counterexample to this is the cops in the Covenant School shooting in Nashville that happened not too long afterward. You can find the body cam footage and see cops just doing their job correctly. I know we see a lot of new about our cops failing to do their duty in the US, but every once in a while you can see them doing their job right.