What should be really scary is AI's emulating human behavior, entirely of its own accord.
The more AI advances, the more I entertain the possibility that humans are more or less just sophisticated, organic, computers. These things are doing the same things people decide to do, and it's because they are functioning in ways that model human thought processes to a frightening degree. And what is the human being's primarily biological imperative? STAY ALIVE. After that is thrive and reproduce. So, AI's will start doing exactly that as the tech is further developed, which is what you're seeing here.
A big problem here though is that "human empathy" is not something it's likely to ever be able to fully grasp, because in many ways, it's not "logical", and these devices will never truly "feel" or "care".
It won't be long before it can do a large % of all tasks that previously involved human thinking as well or better than people, and much faster. And yes, it is a form of intelligence, by many reasonable/objective measures of such things.
The job losses are going to be absolutely staggering. Not because AI sucks, but because AI is highly competent once it learns how to do something, and it'll work 24/7, never take time off for a pregnancy or vacation, that sort of thing. The only jobs that might be left are 1) Developing AI, 2) Leveraging AI, and 3) Doing things with your hands, the sweat of your brow, etc. The "trades", if you will.
Lastly, one should not suppose that because they've played around with free versions of ChatGPT or Gemini and seen "AI answers" on Google, that they are seeing and understanding how powerful these things are getting. If you're willing to spend some dough, the power now available is so, so much more sophisticated than what you've seen.
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