This whole thing is just a PR stunt. I believe that they did not stage it intentionally, but to be honest, the hurdles they put in place were not that hard.

When I heard what the model did, I wasn't surprised one bit. When I read that it was 'unprecedented', I think yes, that is right, but not because it wasn't possible before, but because nobody else did it yet. I am sure that the Anthropic models could have done the same for a few months.

So probably just an experiment gone wrong, and the PR department found this an opportunity to capitalise on (literally).