having used it for a bit, yes, one of the first things it asked me for, unprompted, were things to set it up to buy stuff. i declined but it still consistently wants to spend money; research a trip? as soon as it has any results it prompts to start booking stuff. etc.

Of course it does! Really, though, what it really wants to do is make restaurant reservations. The primary concern of AI researchers has always been, and will always be, making restaurant reservations.

Parsing natural language and solving climate change are downstream of making restaurant reservations.

Universal Paperclips should have been about making restaurant reservations.