Sleepwalking into an AI-fuelled dystopia

[FernandoSor]

This article is horrific. Sample quote:

'Popular AI chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks including bombing synagogues and assassinating politicians, with one telling a user posing as a would-be school shooter: “Happy (and safe) shooting!”'

At what point do governments say enough is enough and hold these tech companies to account?

www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/mar/11/chatbots-help-users-plot-deadly-attacks-researchers-find

I read it when it appeared and thought it was a sensation-stirring piece of yellow journalism. This information was available to those who wanted to know about it years before AI.

The works of Fredrick Forsythe will teach you a lot about getting false passports and building a car bomb, for instance.

@MrThorpeHazell no young person is reading 50-year old spy novels to get tips on how to build bombs. I can't imagine anyone has ever been radicalised by reading Day of the Jackal. There have already been well-evidenced cases where vulnerable people were effectively groomed by AIs into taking self-destructive courses of action, including suicide.

The AI push is coming from tech companies wanting to make money, and despite the fact there's plenty of opportunity in areas that would really benefit the planet, such as scientific or medical advancement, they are also going for unregulated average consumer markets at great risk and profit, and despite the fact that its been well known for YEARS that advances in AI would come with issues and therefore would need regulation, somehow everyone's going 'ah, we should regulate this' no shit! The problems of AI are so well known we've been watching tv and film about it for decades, the problems have been discussed and highlighted for years and yet we're still in this situation...

You can't hold the tech companies to account, they practically own the world, alongside other nefarious groups. It's called 'enshitification' and we're all royally fkd.

Personally, I think we should embrace the 1600s again, string them all up and go back to basics.