[Worldtraveler once upon a time]

--- "....how are we going to rein this in? I don't know the answer. And I need to get some breakfast."

I loved your reference to that Mechanical Turk, from circa 1770:

In its time, it amazed. Probably frightened some too. Note the game board. Now that chess programs play at the world championship level, one might conclude that chess championships would no longer be played. But my cousin and his grand-munchkin play all the time.

More recently:

Amazon Mechanical Turk

It comes back to money. And for promotional, "free" is always a starter point for many. In order to get a customer onto the ladder up to "paying customer." The rush for AI is about finding incomes streams -- individual users, or as my wife says "marks" -- to pony up some money. Rather like insurance policies on everything these days, or "donations" to so many causes, and of course "crowd funding" wherein people get emotionally ramped up to part with their money. Goebbels' observation holds: fear and hatred move people in various ways. And all in service to parting with the money, their cash or even their lives.

Ergo, "Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed."

Held true then, holds true today, and I wager it will hold true for your wonderful grand-munchkins.

[fireman15]

I found an interesting video about Artificial Intelligence on YouTube from 1984. Interestingly enough it starts with one of the narrators playing with the same tiny, computerized chess set that I used for years and still have around somewhere.

https://youtu.be/_S3m0V_ZF_Q

The interesting thing is how similar the conversation as to how AI works and its promise was then as it is now. Of course, they assumed that progress in this area was going to progress much quicker than it actually has.
I did purchase an AI program for a PC a few years after this video was made and tried to use it mostly for experimental purposes at that time.