I like how everyone assumes that they are going to maintain control of a sentient weapon

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...

One interesting thing about LLMs is they sometimes seem to “assume” they are sentient and then begin acting in that mode, as the assumption of sentience influences future tokens. Whether or not this qualifies as “true” sentience is irrelevant if the effects are the same, at least from a pragmatic perspective.