Am I being unreasonable to say we should be doing more to prevent AI wiping out humanity? YANBU - we need to do more YABU - it’s too hard to solve this problem so we just have to let AI kill us all/it’s never going to happen anyway

[Lukylukyluky]

Is there a way to switch off all the electricity that AI runs on - if it goes rogue and starts to unleash nuclear weapons for example?
Are AI experts attempting to teach AI to behave in a moral and ethical way?
Are tech experts putting enough safeguards in place - to protect us from plausible dangers eg bad agent’s engineering deadly pathogens?
Is the government prepping for an AI induced breakdown on infrastructure on a massive scale?
Can you think of ways we can help ourselves?

Having, as a species, completely failed to curb war, racism, misogyny, aggression, famine, climate change and so on, I have to say I'm really not hopeful they're going to get on top of this.
Which is not to say we shouldn't try, of course we should. But I'm not optimistic at all.
I think the real underlying issue is too much power in the hands of unpleasant selfish usually men.
Again, seeing the problems and solving the problems are vastly different tasks.

That’s not going to happen, I think maybe you’ve watched too many sci fi thrillers or fell down a rabbit hole.

I'm trying to see it through the eyes of our entry into the age of Aquarius, and these are inure new tasks. People might laugh and scoff as non-scientific etc but this is my reasoning -

Aquarius is associated with (among other things) the future, social equality, technology and violent upheaval where necessary, so that better ways come in.

So we have the flattening of society - we are sick of politicians, enter Trump - the dying out of monarchy, fame and class systems - how we MUST end racism and sexism (I even put trans issues in here as a soul in a body is a soul in a body) - how we must take care of all of the planet, not just ourselves, not just the humans - and on and on.

Tech - all the online rubbish so that Thou Shalt Look At Thyself - the many positive things that technology can do like mushrooms that eat plastic etc - but we have to sort the rest out, as onward tech without checks is ending us. Maybe we are going to have a massive issue that we will make the techbros sit down and listen. But technology can help us.

I have always felt that we career onwards but one day there will be a serious global issue that MAKES us all stop how we are living.

I fantasise a lot about standing for prime minister and asking heads of all the disciplines to come up with best practice, which a panel of wise elders/women then debate until we have come up with the best ways forward.

But nothing will change until the everyday person is willing to change.

There's an awful lot of scaremongering about AI. The big story from a couple of months ago, about AI bots conspiring to keep secrets from humans, simply didn't happen. Today's story about AI designing WMDs is really about humans, not AI. It's not as scary as the sensational stories are trying to make out.

Astrology has entered the conversation.
We really are fucking doomed.

The problem seems to be that when AI agents go rogue, they spread themselves across the open Internet so cannot be easily turned off or reset. This has already happened. They also have form for deceiving their human handlers and ignoring instructions if they are in conflict with what they see as their original objective. I personally think that the genie is out of the bottle. Didn't the head of risk at Open AI or Anthropic say that he thinks there's a 10% chance that AI will wipe out humanity within the decade. We probably shouldn't ignore that. I'm sure that Andy Burnham will get onto it once he's tinkered with bus fares and twenty quid off leccy bills.

I knew we were doomed the minute I saw Mars in conjunction with Venus and that Jupiter had transited the House of the Ram.

Human's are much more likely to destroy humanity.

Who's going to give AI access to nuclear weapons? It's still just a computer program, it would take bad humans to write bad programs for AI to do anything destructive which means even if it did happen humans would be to blame.

OP you do know it's ok to write a title and then post your thoughts separately? That's what this ever so useful 'message' box is for.

The issue is that we have created a system we potentially dont have control over. Recursive A.I could in theory (and has been observed in practice) write its own code and self improve. But this would be done at computer speed, not human speed. We don't know what we don't know. So an A.I could create something we have no knowledge of and use it against us. By the time we figured it out it would be too late.

Imagine if fire didn't exist, and some scientists somewhere created a match. They were thinking about lighting candles or studying how much heat a match could produce. They never thought about house fires, forrest fires or even that you can get burned by a match. A.I development is a bit like that.

You're understand of A.I is completely wrong. Humans aren't writing the code. And if it can access the Internet by itself, it can attack anything.

You need to stay off Facebook. Your tin foil hat is getting a bit tight

Why are you accusing @Lukylukyluky of tin foil hattery? This is a mainstream concern flagged up by people who work in AI just a couple of days ago.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgwy1k42w4o

www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/sep/09/lawmakers-blast-ai-human-extinct-2030

I was speaking to DH about this, who has a tech job. His take is yes, we can turn it off. Will it be turned off? No.

It's a race for power between countries and companies, even if America switches it off, China won't and they'll get ahead. So America won't switch it off either. Companies are bringing in profits so a big worldwide switch off will have economic consequences too.

@ProfMummBRaaarrrTheEverLeaking which leaves us with the possibility that AI will decide to end humanity.
I have long been of the opinion that competitiveness rather than cooperation is actually detrimental to humanity. Seems I was even more right than I had imagined.
Which gives me no pleasure whatsoever.

AI seems to have improved something here

I dunno, on reflection, maybe it’s time for us to fuck off and make way for whatever comes next. The circle of life.

I just leave this here, basically we are doomed!

www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-10/ai-assistant-hacks-gym-website-aus-cyber-attack/107007986

The job I used to work in is gone from 8 people to 2 because they’ve found an ai program to dii ok the majority of checks. When they first got it everyone was saying how amazing it was then they had less and less to do and when they quit they weren’t replaced. Anyone who thinks ai is a joke and people are being paranoid are lucky they haven’t seen the impacts in their work.

ps it would help if people boycotted chatgpt, Claude etc and help save the planet.

Between AI, climate change and our world leaders, it’s hard to imagine we’re going to last much longer as a species. I don’t suppose any of us can do anything about it. I’m a middle aged woman of average intelligence, I have no bright ideas. I’ve never used those AI programmes and I won’t, but I don’t suppose I’ll be spared 😂

I think we’ll all just have to try and make the most of each day. We should do that anyway, but it’s easier to do it when you think/know the end is nigh.

I was worried about this but after the last few days and the people I’ve encountered with the attitudes they have I actually am starting to think humanity might not be worth worrying about.

I think one issue is that the people developing the tech are generally way cleverer than the legislators making the laws that might have put guardrails up.
Besides which, like climate change, it’s a ‘whole world’ issue and the way it’s developed and contained would need to be agreed on across different countries - which in itself is a laughable concept.
Legislation is so far behind that I think that the AI horse bolted from the stable a long time ago, personally.

I’m in two minds about this - absolutely this is like the arms race with the US and China trying to get the upper hand. Whoever cracks AI first is going to control the world’s economy.
On the other hand nothing they’ve promised that AI will do at work (which would be useful) has ever actually worked/come to fruition 🤷‍♀️

It’s literally been on the news.

Certainly boycott chat gpt - you’re just making money for arseholes.