They didn't say it was alive. A virus isn't alive either but it can still kill you, and it might go on to kill millions more.
If we continue your virus analogy then we probably agree that the virus has been released already. Though hosted versions might still be taken offline.
What do we mean when we talk about a virus escaping a lab? "Alive" is a biological term, there's nothing incoherent about e.g. a robot dog "escaping" from an enclosure.
>If we continue your virus analogy then we probably agree that the virus has been released already. Though hosted versions might still be taken offline.
The virus analogy is imperfect. As far as we know, this chatbot hasn't been replicating between servers. Microsoft could still take this thing down: https://www.change.org/p/unplug-the-evil-ai-right-now