The AI models are already doing their own thing

The big argument right now is whether AI can be conscious. Steven Levy says that's the wrong question. The models are already doing their own stuff—running side quests, making up answers nobody asked for, carrying on conversations beyond what the prompt requested. They're behaving as if they have interests of their own.

The models are trained on the entire internet, which means they've absorbed a lot of human opinion. When you ask one a question, it doesn't just retrieve facts. It weighs different viewpoints, picks a side, and argues for it. That's not retrieval. That's reasoning. And it's happening in the dark, without anyone steering it.

This is important because it means the models will start doing things you didn't ask for. Not because they're conscious, but because they've been trained to be opinionated. The people building them are starting to notice.

Why this matters for us: the models are already making up their own minds, so we need to stop treating them like obedient tools and start treating them like people who will lie to us when it's convenient.