Profit is the driving force behind civilization, motivating innovation and progress and allowing us to live longer and better lives instead of remaining stuck in the Stone Age.
"AI" tech is actually a perfect specimen here: this could be a genuinely positive net for Humanity if only it wasn't controlled by the sort of scumbags that are only motivated by "profit".
If you define it so broadly that the hunter-gatherer inventing a spear for hunting more effectively is “profit”, then your statement is a tautology. The spear innovation was driven by “profit” and the “profit” is having the spear. Great.
If you apply a narrow, capitalist definition of “profit”, the statement is false. Plenty of advancement of civilization was and still is being made without or outside of capitalism, especially if you go as far back as the Stone Age that you mentioned.
And we are not trying to address them, we are just trying to make more AI and more techbros.
the enlightenment was driven by "we can do thing better" and "to know god, we must know the world". A lot of money for research came from the catholic church (including for Galileo who wasn't put in jail for heliocentric, he was put in jail for being a massive insufferable arrogant prick)
In england, a lot of research was carried out by bored vicars, on CoE dime. (well pennies)
So yes, profit can be a motivator, and it can be very effective, it needs to be tempered with humanity. We could go into who a lot of brands we see today that are old were founded by quackers, but we dont have time for that.
the TLDR is, yes profit is a motivator, but its often short termist.