Rev, anyone else, familiar with this event/group?
Yes, no.
I'm familiar with private networks of like minded individuals. While rarely the size or scope of most conspiracy theories, they're relatively common. Not quite secret societies, most of them don't have names or labels. I'm familiar with a number of non-government organizations of that nature. Think the smaller decentralized version of "ring knockers", "Mormon connection", frats, etc.
I've never seen any of them run by self-aware artificial intelligences, but I nearly put a round through a predictive index AI that was getting lippy when it came to psychological evaluations. I suspect it was just well programmed to piss off the interviewee rather than truly insightful analysis.
I've seen similar tests. I have no idea whether this was a clever group, or just a cryptic one. Cryptic ones tend to be a bunch of self-authenticating cypher puzzles. You figure out the puzzles, you follow the path, first X get contacted and then the whole thing is shut down. Meh, nothing to worry about. Yes, you'll scoop up some clever folks. The clever ones are a bit more interesting. This may have been one of those. I'd be more curious to watch the puzzle seekers inbound packet filters than the puzzles.
The more clever approach is to toss a bunch of puzzles out there, then watch the contestants in a manner that they don't even realize. Possibly interacting with the puzzle seekers. Looking at the process more than the end result.
