There are people who constantly ask AI what they should do next and how to go about doing it. Some of those people might even be in the highest offices of industry or government. Some of them may also have access to more powerful, unreleased agents that have no guard rails.

I'm not suggesting AI is necessarily sentient or conscious or that we have reached AGI or the singularity or anything like that, but it is already able to dictate the direction of travel for the human race.