It is no more dangerous than allowing a desktop to access an IP when they are browsing the Internet. It would be dangerous to assign a static IP, have insecure services exposed. Two separate issues. When you connect to the Internet from a business or a home network, or any network for the most part, chances are you will have a firewall somewhere in the loop. Whether it is a dedicated firewall, or minimalist fw like rules applied on a router. That router is your egress point to the world. So this is what occurs when you connect, and how the world sees you:
Router - 10.10.10.1 (internal address) / 33.33.33.33 (external address)
Laptop1 - 10.10.10.2
Workstation1 - 10.10.10.4
DBServer2 - 10.10.10.10
Let's say a user on Laptop1 goes to get an update at say: mysoftware.com, this is what occurs very basic terms:
Laptop1 --> need to go to mysoftware.com (DNS lookup) --> router
Your router creates a tuple (NAT/PAT) to pass it to the world which may look something like this:
10.10.10.2:65432 --> mysoftware.com --> router (I need to remember this)
router --> 10.10.10.1:44555 / 33.33.33.33:554433 --> mysoftware.com "Hey I need this"
Imagine if two people at the same exact time went to mysoftware.com how would data know which machine is which? This is done by the tuple so on the way back this occurs:
mysoftware.com --> here is your update --> 33.33.33.33:554433
Your router/firewall now maps back that tuple:
554433 = 44555 which I have mapped to 10.10.10.2:65432
That is how connections work in a nutshell. Now, under the same ASCII explanation... The outside world can NEVER randomly see what is behind a firewall (unless the fw is misconfigured, and someone does some really good firewalking). So what is perceived will occur by allowing this system to access the Internet? Remember, there is a difference between assigning that machine a STATIC IP where the world can see it, to just giving it access.
So let's assume this is a MySQL server:
Workstation1 - 10.10.10.4 3306 is opened for LOCAL connections (within the LAN)
An attacker? They won't know the 10.10.10.4 address exists. In the world, all they know/see is 33.33.33.33 they can send data to 33.33.33.33 port 3306 but it will end up nowhere.