All the AI we have today is, at its core, just pattern recognition.

ChatGPT can answer questions because it’s been shown a VERY large list of questions and their right answers. ChatGPT has no idea what the question is or what the answer means. It just has an algorithm that knows that a particular answer fits the pattern of “a correct answer” for that question better than any other answer.

It can’t “reason“ or “think” in any way. It’s not going to become self aware or set its own objectives. And so far we don’t have anything close to true general AI, we don’t even know if it’s possible.

There’re still risks from the current AI though. AI will sometimes find unanticipated and undesirable solutions that technically meet the goal it was given. A “Terminator” style future is unlikely without artificial general intelligence, but it’s not completely unreasonable to think of a scenario like “I, Robot” where a “dumb” AI subjugates humanity as a solution to a more altruistic goal like ending war or famine, because it’s a solution that matches the pattern it was told to look for.