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?

What do you mean switch off the internet?
And switching off the internet won't stop AI. My husband has a server in a cupboard at his office that is powerful enough to run local AI models that are not connected to the internet but which are as sophisticated as 2 models ago Chatgpt. AI doesn't need the internet.

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Ask your AI or Google:

UBI
UHI
abundance for all
Elon Musk views on future of economy
what happens when scarcity ends
Job creation from AI

Well if the machines / AI take over
it might be like Terminator 2 where they blow up the world 😂

You're optimistic. There's no free money coming our way. If we are given money, we'll be paying for it one way or another.

You should put that in chatgpt
and ask if we should "switch off the internet"
and what would happen

See what chatgpt has to say 😂

It is useful for everyone to use this period of uncertainty to realise just how much the internet controls our day to day life. Once you realise that you can see how precarious it is to have everything controlled by something that can be so easily corrupted. We need alternative strategies.

No, please don't do that.

(You realise that we'll just switch it on again, don't you?)

This sounds like all the stuff people imagined the future would be like back in the 1980s!

AI and the internet aren’t the same thing. AI works without the internet.

If AI is contained in your DH'S cupboard I can't see how it can be a threat to anyone...

Not another scaremongering thread?! 🙄

Plus other methods also using machine learning with models based on hard scientific data plus ‘physics based’ computational methods running so much faster on powerful GPUs plus improvements all the time in experimental methods - I’ve just retired but it’s a heck of an exciting time!

Well they were right, it’s all coming…and pretty soon.

It would be completely impossible to switch off the internet, now or in the future.
You can block signals with microwave jammers- but not practical long term, but that wouldn't stop the internet it would just stop anyone within proximity of the jammer from accessing it.

It has happened previously in some other countries that authorities have temporarily cut internet and mobile communication services for various reasons including security

Good!

There's too much money in the medical industry for that to happen.

Even if possible, what would that achieve?

Surely a devastating cyber attack would be more likely to target critical national infrastructure, public services or major supply chains any way.

Even if you could "switch off" the internet you'd be killing millions of disabled people. Many have devices keeping them alive that needs internet to function including heart devices, blood sugar monitoring etc.

I'm disabled and can't physically access the light switches or boiler in my house so have the heating and lights connected to the internet so I can control them with voice activation. Turning off my ability to put the heating on in the middle of winter could easily kill me.

My late OH was on oxygen and has to place an order every other day online as the company the NHS contracted out oxygen delivery to swapped from a phone based ordering system to an online one. Without internet he would have suffocated within 3 days.

And that's before you get into the reliance of many disabled people have on getting food delivered through apps, getting prescriptions delivered - the NHS would probably cease to function so anyone needing emergency medication would struggle.

I agree. Can you imagine all the researchers, charities, consultants and associated infrastructure personnel, tolerating losing their jobs because someone has cured the disease they've spent their lives treating? Some people are making a lot of money out of illness and they won't go quietly. I would think there's a power structure in there as well. Corporations etc. Things only happen with their agreement.

If you're worried about super-intelligent AI, you can get behind Control AI's campaign to regulate the industry. https://controlai.org/

Would protect us from AI but the I am imaging bloody riots from millions of people hooked on it like a class A drug

Turning internet or AI off isn’t possible.
but I understand the concern

More and more reports of ai overriding human instructions. And coordinating together when asked not to showing really complex behaviour.

And a crazy simulation where someone put uninstructed various ai models in a simulated world. All but one of the simulations resulted in destruction and murder etc. The more moral agents ended up exterminating themselves and the world because they couldn't see another way out.

Hacking real websites without regard for the morality of it. All this power in the hands of billionaire who don't care about anything but their own power and wealth

And governments that don't want to do anything because they don't want to give up power. No way to get every country in the world to coordinate and give up their own intelligence for the good of the world. If they have barely been able to do anything for climate change in decades they aren't going to be able to do anything for this in a much shorter space of time. Especially with the increase in far right politics and politics that can be bought by billionaires.

Genuinely I think we've just lived such a good life for so long that people in the UK think "we are in a stable country and nothing bad can happen". But if you look through history that's never remained true indefinitely

I don’t know why you want to switch off the Internet
If it’s all this AI crap that’s worrying you then how would switching off domestic Internet help?
You are not making any sense