I didn’t follow the whole thread. Just want to point out that over the last 10 years hacking air-gapped systems has been a primary objective. Hard drive clicks, keyboard clicks, CPU squeaks, speaker-to-speaker. Exactly what advanced adversarial AI would be specifically good at.
“Close” in relative terms. It’s been a while and don’t remember, but I think one study concluded it could be done from across the street or through an office window, etc.
It may not sound very exciting, but if you’re the NSA or CIA and you want access to a HVT, then all of these options are on the table if the routine approaches haven’t been successful.