To not have children due to the potential threat of AI

[NP101]

I realise this probably makes me sound like a fully paid up member of the tin hat society but I'm increasingly worried about the threat of AI.

It has made me re-evaluate having children as the future looks pretty bleak - I can envisage the internet more or less being unusable in 5 years time and then the subsequent fall out of this - both socially and economically.

I realise I probably would have had similar feelings had I been around in various other points in history and subsequently regretted not having children but this current threat seems even more existential.

Oh come on…

Better not have kids because of

The Celts
The Romans
The Black Death
The Vikings
The Spanish
WWI
WWII
Cuban missile crisis
Cold War
Falklands war
IRA
9/11
Al Qaeda
ISIS
Mad Cow Disease
Bird Flu
SARS
Covid
Climate Crisis

This kind of fear isn't new. AI is just the latest in a longer list than the one above

I'm becoming a slight prepper and I'm thinking more about if we had to live off the land how we would do that. We are lucky in that we are in a detached house with some land attached. Not enough for cows but certainly for fruit, veg, chickens, a goat and some hives and some medicinal plants should the apocalypse happen for us or in DS's generation!

AI means many things. It's used everyday, in banking systems, healthcare and manufacturing for example and there are many things that we do all the time that fall under AI. It's often this that flags potential fraud on your bank account.

Yes I understand the development of AI and tech in general may seem scary, but I honestly believe the answers to some of the biggest issues we face today around climate change etc will be advanced through technology.

I love the idea of being a prepper. I love apocalyptic movies. But what I've realised from the films is that in this country especially you have no way of defending your stuff. Bad people will find guns, and come and take everything you've prepped.

I do try to tell myself that people must have felt like this at every crunch point like this through history.

Yes this is how I feel. Throughout history there have been terrible wars, natural disasters, horrible leaders, infectious diseases, stifling societal rules, etc etc.

Yes the current worries are real, as the past ones were. But I'd rather take my chances being born now than, say, in the middle ages.

I wish I knew.

It makes me angry that they're saying this sort of thing when they were the ones creating it. And now going "oops..."

I started to think along these lines too and then realised that if things truly became that desperate then it probably wouldn't save us. Civilised society is a facade really - I'd fully expect to be mobbed for my chickens if a large proportion of the population was starving - it would all fall to pieces pretty quickly. Learning to forage and hunt would probably be more useful (and fight).

You're missing the huge potential for AI to solve lots of our biggest problems as a species eg preventing dementia and curing cancer etc.

Statistically this is the safest, healthiest, happiest time to be alive - but we always focus on the negative as it's our biological imperative, to protect yourselves.

Personally I don't think it's a good reason; but only you can decide what's right for you and your life.

I didn’t have kids for a lot of reasons, but one was climate change.

But if we can stop it before " it" comes surely that would be better?

Just FYI, chatbots are the sort of consumer-friendly, surface level AIs. There's much more "intelligent" stuff being developed out there (sounds like a conspiracy theory, haha, it's not).

AI is something I can't really do much about.
I do my, albeit not huge, bit for climate change at times.
War and the threat of Putin et al isn't something I can't control.

But overall these are big issues that I cannot control.
Over the years I've learnt to try to avoid worrying about the things I can't control and not let myself become anxious other them. Certainly not to the extent it would rule over my life.

It isn't cockiness. It isn't denying there aren't issues in our world - to be fair there are few periods of history where there hasn't been, if any.
It's just most of these issues I have no real control over so why allow it to make me feel I'll and anxious?!

What always strikes me about posts like this is, one moment in history when many people understandably felt like this was after the first atom bombs fell.
But the generation born then has been the most long lived and in the West at least, one of the most fortunate generations in history.

Some threats are capable of obliterating humans and other species. Climate disaster and nuclear annihilation could do that. AI as a threat - would it only obliterate humans (or drive us insane); or can it harm other species too?

I'm not hugely hopeful myself.
Without interference I reckon I've got about another 40 years to live.
Goodness knows what we'll see.

YANBU to not have children but YABU for the reasoning.

Greed is the biggest threat in my opinion.

And...

Plumbing
Industrialisation
Radio
Television
Computers
The Internet

...etc etc.

Yes, there is a potential threat to humanity from AI if people are dumb enough to put enough physical control in the hands of an AI agent, or if the singularity is even possible.

There's a definite threat to humanity if enough people decide to stop having kids.

How old are you? I imagine you are a millennial?

A far a I can see Millennials had a rough ride, and many struggle with anxiety about an imminent ecological, economic and technical collapse of the world

When us older peeps, have seen and heard it all before. We lived through the Cold War with the imminent threat of total nuclear destruction, fallout from nuclear power plants, Acjd Rain, AIDS, the y2k bug, the internet boom and bust, the financial crises of the 70s, 80s and noughties, the war against terror, etc etc

All these things were like Damocles Swords over our heads...

Today's and future problems may be worse, who knows? Or not as bad as we think...

But I really really feel sorry for the current young people who are so scared all the time. Such an awful way to live

What can we do to help younger people like OP?

Is there anything? I feel guilty for being a wizened old gen X who is actually excited about the opportunities of AI, am already using it at work (software)

Not having kids is part of the problem, we have a huge ageing populating and not enough youth. www.financialsense.com/blog/20008/world-about-fall-demographic-cliff-warns-peter-zeihan-and-implications-will-be-enormous

Surely AI needs power (electricity) to run?
Humans can unplug the servers or they can reduce the compute power of the servers to harness the effectiveness of AI.
Super computers are not particularly 'green' either.
Data mining for crypto is very bad for the climate due to electricity consumption and some countries have banned it. Same principles can be applied to AI compute servers too.

I do agree that AI is very un-green.

You can pick and choose from a plethora of reasons not to have children and they will all be valid to you , but bonkers to others. I don't need to justify my reasons to others for choosing not to because it's too fucking massive and important.
I wish I was born with the "fuck it , let's just do it anyway" gene , but I wasn't.

OP you don't actually mention your rationale for having a fear of AI in your post.

Can you elaborate. Or did AI generate this post for machine learning purposes?

I don’t think you’re being unreasonable. I worry too. Mostly about climate change and overpopulation. AI is a massive concern.

I recently said to DH that I would adore being a grandmother, but it wouldn’t be a bad thing if neither DC has children themselves.