Not only do you not get a choice, it benefits no one but Intel & the three letter agencies they are in bed with. Tanenbaum himself has expressed regret for the way it ended up being used:
"Many people (including me) don't like the idea of an all-powerful management engine in there at all (since it is a possible security hole and a dangerous idea in the first place), but that is Intel's business decision..."
Isn't it BSD [1]? Anyway it became BSD only in 2000. It was $69 before that year. Of course everybody started using Linux because it cost zero. Linux didn't end into Intel's CPUs probably because its GPL.
"Many people (including me) don't like the idea of an all-powerful management engine in there at all (since it is a possible security hole and a dangerous idea in the first place), but that is Intel's business decision..."