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 wish we could switch off the Internet for good. I remember life pre Internet and in my opinion it was so much better and people were a lot happier.

I think we’ve gone too far past the point of being able to switch it off now.

Most businesses will have business continuity plans.

Yes, and they will include things like mirroring to remote data centres, UPS and on site generators to provide power, alternate office locations. These days, BCPs are all about how to get power and connectivity back as soon as possible. Business processes These days are very much reliant on the Internet.

When I was working in the 1990s, the company I was working for did have a plan that included getting thr 15:15 train to Waterloo to hand over manual copies of transactions. These days, the trains probably wouldn't be running, because signalling and central rail traffic control eoukd be down. And no one in the London offices would know what to do with the bits of paper now.

I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.

🤣🤣🤣🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️

Good luck getting past AI if its running the internet 😎

Skynet, anyone?

@Cherrypi we can't switch the internet off
We have no control and the sooner the better imho
Of course it has It's uses not all are positive.
It will implode

A better solution would be to work together but oh wait we left the EU.

Wait, what? I thought mankind was going to be totally wiped out by AI in six months time? 😆 So who’s going to “turn the internet off?” Perhaps we could leave a message with one of the AI robots?

Christ some of you don’t seem to be able to believe there was civilised sophisticated life before the WWW, or know how it’s changed and been written into everyday life since. We could certainly stand to have a few strands of it rolled back. Any jobs lost will be more than compensated for by the rebirth of the economy and jobs regained from computers…

isn’t that what they tell us about AI? More jobs will be created than lost by change? It would actually be true if some of modern computing was dismantled.

I think it's really sad that we are all so reliant on it now for everything.

when it's turned off that's your holiday booking gone, Internet banking, food delivery to home gone and supplies to supermarkets disrupted. Back to brick phones. That's just thinking quick. The Internet and its services is in everything. So if you want to live a simple life turn your own phone/router off and try to manage for a month.

Well yes, but then literally nothing would work - no businesses, no services, no NHS, no police, no security, no public services, no fire service, no trains, no food in the shops. Everything works via the internet these days - everything that relies on communication.

Even phones are backed by the internet, even brick phones need the internet running the network.

@Pedallleur I think the point is that if we ‘switched the internet off’ that would have to be universal and would require us to set up different systems and infrastructure. Of course one individual switching off just their own internet is going to struggle to function in a society where all other individuals and businesses are using the internet.

I wish we could. But it isn’t possible. I think the AI stuff is terrifying though.

I’ll worry about that happening (turning off the net) when there’s a push for us to go back to using pen and paper and keeping paper records

It must be possible to go back to a pre internet existence. I don't think it would be easy but it must be possible for most people. Get fax machines out, use cash and bank tellers. How much of our utilities supplies work without the internet?

😁 If the internet is ever switched off you would have apocalyptic chaos unlike anything you ever ever seen before. We’d go back to the dark ages not some idyllic 1970s fantasy, survival wouldn’t be living off the land flipping through Kays catalogue listening to the radio, it would be unimaginable hardship and societal breakdown on a global scale.

I think you are misunderstanding how deeply reliant on 'the internet' (connectivity on that scale, anyway) we are globally now. Individuals could certainly go in and visit e.g. their banks, use faxes, etc without accessing a browser or 5G signal from their phone. But if every bit of the system that makes up the internet switched off? The entire banking system, power grid and utilities management, traffic system management, food logistics and transport, etc etc etc are all now running in part or whole via the internet. Everything would grind to a halt and normal life as we know it would stop: you would not be able to go to a bank and get money out in person, because the ledgers keeping track of money would be down. Pretty quickly there would be food shortages as all the logistics systems built to move food around the world would be down. There would be plane and train and car crashes as their navigation and signalling systems would be down. Power grids would fail because their load balancing systems would be down. Even if it happened as a planned, prepared-for act rather than out of the blue, all of these things would require a huge, huge amount of effort to manage without digital connectivity - things would be disrupted for a long time.

Well something has gone wrong with work internet access today for things WFH so struggling to do anything constructive

So how did we manage to survive pre Internet? I agree if the Internet was switched off immediately and completely throughout the world it'd be chaos, but if it was phased over a period of time, I think it could be done. It will never happen though sadly.

Should be easy enough to do!

It’s too late OP. Pandora’s box is opened now. Do you think our adversaries will be willing to put the stopper on AI as well? Ofcourse they won’t.

The big tech bosses have really messed up with this. They should have considered the consequences earlier before it was too late. Now there’s all this talking about halting the advancement of AI because it could be dangerous. There’s no way countries like China will want to do that because they would want to have the advantage over everyone else. We’re f’kd.

Turn off the internet 😂😂. My god the stupidity and lack of knowledge of some people is astounding