I once built a product that optimized waste. I was so proud of myself, it was going to save so much money. Did a site visit to a beta site and was talking to staff. One woman asked me if I knew what happened to that waste. I answered no. She told me it was bagged up and sent to third world countries where it saved lives. That is how I killed people to save money. Yes, if you are dependent on that waste it is very precarious. Doesn't change the reality for the people who it no longer went to save. I don't know the lesson to take from it. Still haunts me. Saving the money kept services in underserved communities in the US and touched tens of thousands of lives. But it also cost lives. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I've just accepted that there is no action which has the intended effect in full.

Kinda like how entropy forces mechanical energy to not be transferred in full to the form desired. Electrical to light? Some transfer will be heat. Optimize to be more light than heat? Light bill goes down, heat bill goes up in winter.

That's a disconnected parallel from real choices that have much more drastic effects. I don't think what you did was wrong, but it did have unintended consequences. Every new technology brings opportunities for both good and evil intents too, but the outcome is judged by those effected, regardless of the intent of the agent.