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AIBU?

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Original poster

The Government needs to do something

251 replies

Noneverever · 11/09/2026 19:56

yay, UK government.

Let’s just do nothing as the world edges itself towards annihilation driven solely by billionaire men hawking for more money.

10% chance we’ll all be dead in 3.5 yrs. Something needs to be done. Now

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3eq7kl5l00o

A hand on a phone displaying several AI apps including ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, DeepSeek and Gemini

UK government rejects 'kill switch' idea for dangerous AI

The Cabinet Office, which leads on AI safety, says the UK "cannot simply turn AI off".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3eq7kl5l00o

OP posts:
Burntoutmumm · 13/09/2026 12:14

What is with this "there's nothing I can do about it" attitude from everyone? Is this how much we have all been worn down and suppressed or does it just simply come down to burying your heads in the sand and laziness? A lot of us here have children that we want to see alive in the next ten years. We have strength in numbers and I think we forget that. We shouldn't just role over and shrug our shoulders just because it feels out our hands. We need to try and do something, if not for ourselves then for our children and grandchildren.

Pasithean · 13/09/2026 12:12

Kf37elrif · 13/09/2026 12:10

Not so much without fuel, food, clean water, a health system or a functioning defence system.

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Exactly. Not sat nav.

OtterlyAstounding · 13/09/2026 12:11

EmeraldRoulette · 13/09/2026 11:58

This is a bit mad

all the city dwellers will be descending on the likes of you!

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It was a light-hearted comment, mostly picking up on water not being an issue for everyone.

But in seriousness, NZ (where I am) is one of the few places that's pretty much self-sufficient for food, and the people are pretty good at pulling together when things go to shit. I think in a situation where the rest of the world has gone to hell in a hand basket, we stand fairly good odds compared to many places.

ETA: Or we'd just go bush. Not the worst chances, in that kind of doomsday situation.

WestwardHo1 · 13/09/2026 12:11

In the meantime, I continue to prep a little more each week, a few more tins of beans here, another few bottles of water there. Ludicrous really, as what I'd really find most use for, if it comes to it, is a gun

Yes ludicrous. In the absence of cyanide tablets, I am thankful I live near tall cliffs.

Kf37elrif · 13/09/2026 12:10

Pasithean · 13/09/2026 12:07

Thats a ridiculous example of course we can live without sat nav.

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Not so much without fuel, food, clean water, a health system or a functioning defence system.

OtterlyAstounding · 13/09/2026 12:08

Noneverever · 13/09/2026 12:00

Mate. You think a band of 20 armed men won’t turn up to take over your farm with its resources? Get real.

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Gracious, taking it all rather seriously, aren't you?

But it's not my farm, so no, they won't be turning up to take my resources. Besides, practically only farmers have guns, here.

Pasithean · 13/09/2026 12:07

backformoreofthesame · 13/09/2026 10:08

If the government DID something the impact on your daily life could be huge and I expect that’s why

it would have to disconnect so much infrastructure from modern internet - your car sat nav?

Thats a ridiculous example of course we can live without sat nav.

Original poster
Noneverever · 13/09/2026 12:06

Lostandabitcold · 13/09/2026 12:03

But you’re not. You’re waiting for someone else to something about it. Someone else to organise the outcry, someone else to drive the protest, someone else to gather the troops. You’re just sitting on your sofa typing on your phone.

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Ok, I’m sorry if I’ve given that impression but it’s not the case.

Either way, I don’t want to argue on the internet. That certainly won’t bring any joy to my time on earth will it!

OP posts:
Kf37elrif · 13/09/2026 12:04

Noneverever · 13/09/2026 12:00

Mate. You think a band of 20 armed men won’t turn up to take over your farm with its resources? Get real.

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If an army of drones haven’t got there first.

Lostandabitcold · 13/09/2026 12:03

Noneverever · 13/09/2026 10:24

Why would you write this?

I’m trying to do something. I’m trying to use what little means I have to galvanise people to wake up, get together and do something, together about the predicted end of the world and you’re being facetious and antagonistic. Why?

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But you’re not. You’re waiting for someone else to something about it. Someone else to organise the outcry, someone else to drive the protest, someone else to gather the troops. You’re just sitting on your sofa typing on your phone.

EasternStandard · 13/09/2026 12:02

Noneverever · 13/09/2026 11:49

this one

https://darioamodei.com/post/we-must-pace-the-frontier

Edited
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Ok I’ve read it. He makes some good points although the China part is still hard, they’d have to sign up to those levels and there’d need to be oversight somehow.

It is a bit concerning as it reads like scientists on the Manhattan project.

Original poster
Noneverever · 13/09/2026 12:02

rrrrrreatt · 13/09/2026 11:59

What article are you talking about? The link you’ve provided doesn’t quote anyone called Amodei or contain a plan from the Anthropic CEO. It also predicts AI could wipe out humanity in the mid 2030s not 2030.

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This one

darioamodei.com/post/we-must-pace-the-frontier

OP posts:
Opus3 · 13/09/2026 12:00

Amodei isn't saying that AI is going to become sentient one day and decide to end us.

It's that it is given a goal, and it works until that goal is achieved. And what the hugging face hack showed, is that AI can and will do what it deems necessary to achieve, and it did so by doing something the lab didn't expect, and why the correct guardrails weren't in place.

So the scenario isn't we hate humans and want to destroy humanity it's I have this goal, and to achieve it, I need compute, and what has a door to that compute that nobody is really looking at... The NHS (this is just an example)

Worriednanof1 · 13/09/2026 12:00

Noneverever · 13/09/2026 10:08

Take over the electricity grid and shut it down. Hack the water infrastructure and restrict access. Launch nuclear weapons. Bring down the banking system and therefore the world’s economy. And a million other scenarios we can’t contemplate, because it’s more clever than us.

I don’t really understand how people with no knowledge are arguing against the top AI experts with such certainty. It’s bizarre. If a top medic told you there would be a pandemic in the next 3 yrs that would wipe out humanity if we keep doing x, would you want to stop doing x or ignore him/her?

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Why would it do that? Not arguing, genuine question. This is the first i've heard and it sounds terrifying.

Original poster
Noneverever · 13/09/2026 12:00

OtterlyAstounding · 13/09/2026 11:57

Hopefully I'd be a survivor - we live rurally with a rainwater tank, and are surrounded by cows, sheep, small game, as well as near the coast. So, worst case scenario, we're fine for water and some meat, as well as foraged greens, in addition to our dry goods. Not exactly great odds, but we won't be fighting any neighbours in the streets, at least. It's the city and suburban dwellers who won't be having fun.

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Mate. You think a band of 20 armed men won’t turn up to take over your farm with its resources? Get real.

OP posts:
rrrrrreatt · 13/09/2026 11:59

Noneverever · 13/09/2026 10:44

so you haven’t read the article? Because Amodei explains how halting the pace won’t leave the US behind China specifically. And explores this in depth

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What article are you talking about? The link you’ve provided doesn’t quote anyone called Amodei or contain a plan from the Anthropic CEO. It also predicts AI could wipe out humanity in the mid 2030s not 2030.

EmeraldRoulette · 13/09/2026 11:58

OtterlyAstounding · 13/09/2026 11:57

Hopefully I'd be a survivor - we live rurally with a rainwater tank, and are surrounded by cows, sheep, small game, as well as near the coast. So, worst case scenario, we're fine for water and some meat, as well as foraged greens, in addition to our dry goods. Not exactly great odds, but we won't be fighting any neighbours in the streets, at least. It's the city and suburban dwellers who won't be having fun.

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This is a bit mad

all the city dwellers will be descending on the likes of you!

EmeraldRoulette · 13/09/2026 11:57

Yupyh · 13/09/2026 11:42

US tech companies are the world leaders. Sunak had a vision to try and and use our Brexit freedoms to deregulate and create an AI and tech hub in the UK. Sunak was a very smart man.

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And he is worried about it now.

If you saw my earlier post, you will see that none of this is new to me, and I’m kind of sitting on the fence.

It does look as if you are not familiar with the issues so maybe do some reading there? I don’t know …you’re probably a lot younger than me and probably not fussed.

as I said in my post, I was worried in the beginning but I got used to it. It’s quite strange to me that people are talking about it now.

OtterlyAstounding · 13/09/2026 11:57

Noneverever · 13/09/2026 11:48

Are you serious? Without electricity we’d run out of water and food within a couple of weeks. Humans can survive 3 days without water.

Sure, some would survive. Likely those tech bros that have the bunkers and the huge pieces of land (referenced in the article they’re buying up land to live off of) but us? We’d be fighting in the streets for resources and being killed by our neighbours because they know we’ve some food stocked or whateve

Show quote history

Hopefully I'd be a survivor - we live rurally with a rainwater tank, and are surrounded by cows, sheep, small game, as well as near the coast. So, worst case scenario, we're fine for water and some meat, as well as foraged greens, in addition to our dry goods. Not exactly great odds, but we won't be fighting any neighbours in the streets, at least. It's the city and suburban dwellers who won't be having fun.

Wolverine23 · 13/09/2026 11:56

Noneverever · 11/09/2026 19:56

yay, UK government.

Let’s just do nothing as the world edges itself towards annihilation driven solely by billionaire men hawking for more money.

10% chance we’ll all be dead in 3.5 yrs. Something needs to be done. Now

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3eq7kl5l00o

Lol the government is part of it so good luck telling them tbat.

EmeraldRoulette · 13/09/2026 11:55

AwfulButTrue · 13/09/2026 11:32

I'm probably extremely naive herw but why can't we just ban AI?

We lived without it for so long.

If its causing so many issues and threatening jobs and potentially our luves then why do we need it?

Why can't we just do things without it like we did 5 years ago?

AI has been in use far far longer than that!

Kf37elrif · 13/09/2026 11:54

ShhhYouDontKnowMe · 13/09/2026 11:46

Two other thoughts that come to mind - a huge number of people are still living lifestyles that are not as tied to technology as we are - so when we say end of the world presumably we mean end of the westernised world/way of life? More remote communities may stumble on longer.

And whatever people think of Covid it did show that in a major crisis the world could largely align and take similar measures at the same time and come up with solutions to manage the risk. Naively I’d like to think it could do so again - unfortunately this time the knowledge and power is in the hands of private companies and not governments, which will make it all the harder.

I doubt they’d last long if water systems had been deliberately poisoned and drone swarms were monitoring their every move. Tactics Russia is already using with Ukraine. Drones can seek humans in buildings and are now jet propelled.

Original poster
Noneverever · 13/09/2026 11:53

Frequency · 13/09/2026 11:37

Arm nuclear warheads? Overheat nuclear power plants and cause meltdowns? Crash planes and self-driving cars into infrastructure?

I don't believe AI is going to kill us in 10 years; I don't believe it is advanced enough to decide to hack warheads of its own accord, but I can see ways it could if it had the ability to make its own choices.

.When it goes on hacking sprees, it is hacking device types it has been programmed to hack and for the purpose it has been programmed to do. It hasn't decided to do it on its own. The programmers didn't code a robust enough "if you see this, stop," which is why it escaped. It had no conscious thought in doing so.

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A genuine question. Why do you think it’s not advanced enough when the AI experts are saying it’s imminently will be. What do you know that they don’t?

But also to your second point this is the exact problem. We didn’t know what we didn’t know about telling it what not to do. It’s getting too advanced to control. That’s why there’s calls for a slow down, to catch up with safeguards and alignment

OP posts:
Original poster
Noneverever · 13/09/2026 11:49

EasternStandard · 13/09/2026 11:28

I’ve read it now, it doesn’t mention China?

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this one

https://darioamodei.com/post/we-must-pace-the-frontier

OP posts:
Original poster
Noneverever · 13/09/2026 11:48

Winter2020 · 13/09/2026 11:14

Because a pandemic could wipe us out but no electricity just means no electricity. The vast majority of people aren't going to die because there is no electric. Hell we could even survive without the internet and 24 hour news - we wouldn't all keel over.

Loss of banking systems would be very difficult. Might be worth having accounts with more than one bank group?

Yes a nuclear bomb could kill us all. We're always at risk of that from a number of people pressing the button though.

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Are you serious? Without electricity we’d run out of water and food within a couple of weeks. Humans can survive 3 days without water.

Sure, some would survive. Likely those tech bros that have the bunkers and the huge pieces of land (referenced in the article they’re buying up land to live off of) but us? We’d be fighting in the streets for resources and being killed by our neighbours because they know we’ve some food stocked or whateve

OP posts: