So even if this was a PR stunt, I think it’s best for people to take a step back and realise that this kind of event is going to be very possible in the near future. Even worse, this was a benchmark attempt by a frontier lab - not a malicious actor looking for security holes to poke for profit or otherwise from. I think this is going to be the new normal soon.
My first reaction was that this seemed a lot like a PR stunt. The frontier labs (and, really, any of the large AI companies) have so eroded public trust trying to one up each other that you have to come at each bit of news with a healthy dose of skepticism.
“Would I believe this if it was coming from the mouths of Musk or the President?” (doesn’t that tell you where we are as a society …)
The fact is, however, that we’re ill-prepared for the onslaught of security vulnerabilities that are coming our way, and the amount of data getting exfiltrated.
Maybe this will finally spur the government to put some real teeth into privacy laws.