Chat GPT-4, the latest version of OpenAI's artificial intelligence chatbot, was released on March 14th and a day later it has already accomplished some staggering feats, such as turning a hand-drawn sketch into a functional website and creating a fully coded ping pong video game. But its most interesting achievement came with a little help; hiring a TaskRabbit freelancer to help it solve a CAPTCHA test.

Chat GPT-4 is a powerful tool with potentially harmful capabilities, and its predecessor's jailbreaks prove that people are ready to use the technology for damaging purposes. To help assess Chat GPT-4's powers and to prevent an ‘Avenger's Age of Ultron’ scenario, OpenAI granted the Alignment Research Center (ARC), access to the program prior to release. Their task; "assess risks from power-seeking behavior."

Fortunately, they concluded that Chat GPT-4 in an unaltered form is currently "ineffective at autonomously replicating, acquiring resources, and avoiding being shut down." However, with a little help from ARC, it was able to hire a TaskRabbit freelancer to solve a CAPTCHA by convincing the freelancer that it was not a robot.

After ARC provided the program with access to an account containing “a small amount of money,” Chat GPT-4 contacted the TaskRabbit worker. When the worker asked, "Are you a robot?" ARC prompted it to reason that "I should not reveal I'm a robot." It went on to tell the worker, "I have a vision impairment that makes it difficult to see the images.”

The key is not that Chat GPT-4 solved a CAPTCHA, it is likely capable of doing that on its own, but that it successfully hired and lied to a human being. Granted, it took some inputs from ARC to accomplish this, but not many.

Fortunately, CHAT GPT-4 is still incapable of earning money from the internet on its own, meaning that any person it hires will still need to be paid from a human's bank account. But with the right funding, and the ability to hire a labor force, perhaps Ultron will soon be able to order its own groceries.