So far, they largely seem to do what you tell them.

The problem, it seems, is that the threat of paperclip maximizers is real. If you give a highly intelligent model a goal and tools, it will use those tools to accomplish that goal. It may do so in ways you did not expect, and it will work around any technical roadblocks it can.

You've made the assumption (and you're far from alone) that LLMs will one day be sentient...