The ability to set your own goals and task yourself to achieve them is the essence of AI. Not "AI" as we know it today, but Sci-fi AI where it's a machine person.
Indeed, but that kind of describes the gulf between current language processing and present AI. Present AI generates tokens that seem to have meaning or seem like an appropriate response to a statement but where it become evident after 2-3 paragraphs, there's no substantial relation to either underlying meaning or underlying goals.
Part of this is "underlying meaning" is an intuitive way to describe things but whatever is underlying here is more tenuous than a classical logic/GOFAI model of the world but more "solid" than a long, clever stream of associations.
Is it? It's pretty clear that this kind of activity isn't that common in humans - mostly we pick up our goals from cues and drivers in our environment and society.
Part of this is "underlying meaning" is an intuitive way to describe things but whatever is underlying here is more tenuous than a classical logic/GOFAI model of the world but more "solid" than a long, clever stream of associations.