The Hugging Face breach is probably not a clear warning shot. It might spur policymakers into action, but it seems like there are still a few mitigating factors preventing it from taking off—for example, some people who I respect aren't taking it very seriously yet due to their strong distrust of OpenAI and Sam Altman. And since no one was directly harmed, we're still left saying "What happens if capabilities increase further??" instead of "This is what happens if we don't intervene right now," which is obviously the stronger message.

In some ways, this is good: if we mobilize now, we'll probably do so even more if we get an indisputably clear warning shot (e.g. an AI commits some act of terrorism). On the other hand, I do hope we're not capitalizing on our goodwill early; there are some people out there who are determined to paint AI Safety people as perennial wolf-criers, and I worry that they'll say the same about us this time.