No ChatGPT isn't true artificial general intelligence so much as it's a particular talented autocomplete. That said, when they iron the bugs out it will be enough to cause serious economic upheaval in the white collar world. It's already started.

The risk of Skynet style domination is down the road, but possibly not too far. This isn't my opinion, it's a view widely--although not universally--held by experts in the field.

As far as not knowing how consciousness works, increasingly we don't know how these AI systems work either. They're out there upgrading themselves; if and when something becomes self-aware most likely we wouldn't know til it wanted us to.

I'd rather be wrong, but that's not where the research takes me.