Its just an improvement in degree, not in kind, over other digital automated procedures. Digital computers are simply an automation of bureaucracy. Nothing these machines do can't be done by a warehouse full of scriveners hunched in their cubicles. The machines are just cheaper to operate and they won't go on strike or join a union.

The real terror here is not of machines taking over humanity. After all, we can always just pull the plug. The real problem is turning over human decision making to some "intelligent", computational, automated, electronic, electrical, mechanical, bureaucratic system simply because its cheaper to operate and maintain. And this has nothing to do with technology. The Romans had bureaucracies too.

Computers are great for things like navigating spacecraft or solving systems of partial differential equations. But when we start using them to answer dentists' telephones or buying and selling stocks, we are VOLUNTARILY turning over human control to an automatic process dictated primarily by the greed of some accountant. This avarice didn't start with AI, it began when we started writing down rules on clay tablets to control the storage and distribution of surplus grain five millennia ago. The machines "took over" a long time ago.

The next time you go hungry because an illiterate teenager can't make change for you at a fast food restaurant because "the system is down", don't blame the system. Blame the boss.

As for those wackos on the ChatAI board, well, what do you expect? They're engineers.