Open AI's ChatGPT is a civilizational disruptor, but it is a forerunner to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) which has not yet appeared on the scene. This is what is freaking out the scientists who are issuing these new warnings. ChatGPT and its siblings serve only to show how quickly and deeply they have penetrated into all areas of society. When AGI arrives, it will do the same.
As conservatives and libertarians swoon over Elon Musk being a "free speech absolutist", he cavorts with the world's first nation to have converted to Technocracy. Musk, an arch-Technocrat himself, finds satisfaction in China because "birds of a feather, flock together." Musk should be no puzzlement to anyone who grasps this concept, but he is a great danger to everyone else.
Technocracy's prime directive in the 1930s was to master the "Science of Social Engineering". Without ethical restraints, Pandora's Box was opened with "anything goes" in the name of technocratic progress. Gaslighting becomes a primary tool in the propagandist's toolbox when other propaganda techniques become ineffective. The danger with a gaslit population? Don't light a match.