We will probably have to switch the internet off at some point in the next decade

[Cherrypi]

I think we might need to temporarily switch the internet off at some point in the next decade to protect us from AI. Is that possible? What do you think would happen?

I think it may come to that if we are "in danger" from AI. Don't you?

It wouldn't be possible certainly not at this time.
We as individuals and businesses are wholly reliant on it now for so many things.
Wish we weren't though.

I think that would be a very welcome reset. The internet is completely out of hand as it is, without even getting into AI and what could happen there.

How would we 'switch off' the internet? It's not a homogeneous service provided by one organisation. All the world's governments and ISPs would have to be on board, I can't imagine how that would happen. Never mind the effect on businesses/services etc. It's like proposing 'turning off' everyone talking, how would you do it and how would you cope with even 10 minutes of it?

This AI paranoia is out of control

As a former IT worker some of this discourse around AI is somewhat painful, particularly the recurring theme of 'can we switch the Internet off' or install a 'kill switch'.

The Internet is decentralised, there aren't single points of failure - that's by design, so that when a router goes down it reroutes like water to the next most viable path. It also isn't one single network, it's made up of loads of individual networks all connected together. If you took down our underwater cables China would be fine, and so on, and then even if you somehow took down the land and sea we'd still have the satellites.

Also, taking us backwards technologically by several decades is absolutely not the answer.

It would be impossible as nearly all businesses are built on it, they will do anything to not let that happen… even up to catastrophic AI takeover

You know there isn't actually an internet switch don't you?

Theoretically we could unanimously decide to remove the connection wires and switch off the wifi access for every computer in the world but even if 1% of the population of the world disagrees, there will still be an internet

We just ask AI how to do that 😄

People are bonkers 😆

Maybe that will be the goal of AI if they want to destroy our way of life. To make us think we have to do a big switch off to be safe when really it’s the reset we need.

I don’t think you understand how the internet works.

Honestly its just not possible to turn the Internet off, what is it with this AI madness, if AI was that powerful it wouldn't let you turn Internet off, its not one plug😂

If the AI is that powerful it will probably already have made a copy.

Isn't the fear with AI that the problem is by the time we realise there is an issue it will be too late, because it will already be smarter than the smartest human. And the smartest human is still human.

Can you explain why you think it wouldn’t be possible?

Most businesses will have business continuity plans.

Having said that, it would depend how long it would need to be down for. Small temporary blackout, fine. Longer term would pose lots of issues I’d imagine.

Can AI programmes be turned off, like other systems can? Pull the plug? Or is the risk that they find a way to function even if the company that owned it turned it off?

I’m so sick of the modern world sleepwalking into disasters. Climate change, health crisis and now AI. It’s so obvious that certain things are bad for us and our children, yet we do it anyway.

Isn’t it though? I’m probably naive but I thought the internet providers could just turn it off?

It's a refreshing change over Covid paranoia, then Putin paranoia, then the unaccounted for nuclear weapons.
Tomorrow it will be something else.

Not "fake" as such, but just the fashionable subject of the day, people like to be anxious.

What happens to the millions who are reliant on it for work? My job for example is "on the internet"

This is an insane idea OP. Supermarkets, food supply chain, department stores, NHS, GPs, petrol transportation…. I could go on. All depends on internet. We would grind to a halt very quickly. Within hours

Oh very naive!

You do know we made AI don't you? It's not an alien thing that landed on Earth and we started using it without reading the label. Humans made it and programmed it, it's not independently sentient besides what it's been given the tools to develop from. You're talking as if it wandered in uninvited. And even just thinking about the UK, never mind the rest of the world, how would we manage even a week of our current food distribution, travel or banking without the internet? How would we go without them and many other services for the length of the reset?

Well l suppose in theroy uk could disconnect all Internet, but what about russia and china? What will they be doing while we have no idea what's going on in the world?..

Are not IT workers supposed to know how it works then? People are allowed to be ignorance about topics they have no reason to know about. The AI concerns are all over the front page news, of course people will speculate.

I also think there’d be a lot of merit in rewinding the technological clock. Technology has come with pros and cons. And if mass safety were on the line, then I’d choose rewinding over mass casualties. Let’s hope AI doesn’t find its way to nuclear controls.

Given we are a near cashless society it would cause total chaos to ‘switch it off’.
are we too reliant on it? Absolutely, does that put the Western world at risk? Absolutely. Does the western world need to invest heavily in infrastructure to keep us online/ protect our cyber space? Yes without a doubt.
but societies only ever move forward so the internet isn’t going anywhere.
the only thing which would potentially ‘reset’ global infrastructures would be either a huge global event like Krakatoa, combined with a global plague or a devastating global war. Otherwise it’s just not going to happen.

Just look at the chaos that ensues when for example a banking app etc goes down.
One bank had to resort to pen and paper in branch and get customers to sign chits of paper for taking money out this wasn't a planned procedure but made up on the hoof.