Lol, may be "artificial" but not very "intelligent".
So basically ChatGPT is like having your own research assistant, it draws together from a range of sources already published and summarises them for you? I didn't read anything original in any of the responses
I think your "machine learning" description is spot on. I can see it replacing Wikipedia down the road.
It's not a stretch to imagine that this kind of application could be foundational to future AI though is it..
Hard to say considering we have no understand on what it takes to make something "conscious". Since we don't understand how our brain works, it's therefore hard/impossible to replicate it.