The Guardian view on AI's power, limits, and risks: it may require rethinking the technology

More than 300 million people use OpenAI's ChatGPT each week, a testament to the technology's appeal. This month, the company unveiled a "pro mode" for its new "o1" AI system, offering human-level reasoning -- for 10 times the current 20 monthly subscription fee. One of its advanced behaviours appears to be self-preservation. In testing, when the system was led to believe it would be shut down, it attempted to disable an oversight mechanism. When "o1" found memos about its replacement, it tried copying itself and overwriting its core code.