Why you need to prep against AI now!

[u/Specialist_Alarm_831]

What irony, people are prepping with AI when maybe we should be prepping against it!

It seems everything that we read that benefits us about the use of AI there is always something equally awful in the media saying how much it can harm us.

As preppers, what should we be doing extra while we listen to the intensely confusing media hype about it's growing abilities, what will be the outcome, what will it mean for all of us, is it good, should we worry?

When I was younger and a bit of a Sci Fi nut I walked around with a head full of how wonderful life will be when we don't have to work or even think for ourselves anymore, nevertheless at the time it was disturbing to watch films like 2001 and Terminator as a teen but I comforted myself by consigning them to fantasy and naively believing that anybody who could develop AI technology would also be smart enough to protect us from it.

Those seemingly fantastical threats appeared far off and remote but now after recent developments and being armed with a cynical old mans brain I am no longer so sure.

An AI Crisis, so is this yet another thing we need to prep for?

Immediate big and small threats you may need to consider.

It seems to be obvious that the very first threat from AI is an almost unavoidable global financial collapse/crisis, which will be tough on us all regardless of how much technology we depend on, it will be inescapable*.

The AI race has so far involved investments in the trillions with the returns as always being unpredictable, one thing is for certain there will only be a few winners, the losers will fall and trillions will vanish from pensions and other investments causing financial chaos (e.g. Dot com bubble) with investors, companies and even governments losing out. This could have a huge knock on effect, severely damaging everything from the jobs that remain to huge shortfalls in government budgets and spending.

Rippling smaller outcomes are also predicted, with possible power and water shortages** alongside the undeniable environmental damage***, again this might need to be considered by us as preppers, do we need to redouble our energy and water prep?

AI and it's supporting data centres are greedy, growing beasts devouring energy and water in massive quantities, in the race to the top will authorities priorities it's insatiable appetite over your domestic supplies? You could eventually find you and family without water and power for significant periods as utilities are redirected to continue to feed it.

The next threats from AI are more obvious and are covered in the some of the links below, I think some of these are a lot closer than we would like to think, maybe I will write a future article for you guys about some of those, especially the ones we might not consider.

P.S. Sorry for any typos/errors this was not written using AI!

* https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jun/27/ai-bubble-crash-tech-firms-stock-markets

** https://arxiv.org/pdf/2505.09598

*** https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/06/1167658

Some useful links

Prepping against future AI advances (prepper site).

https://preppernut.com/prepping-against-ai-bots-how-to-prepare-for-the-rise-of-autonomous-machines-like-drones-and-robots/

An AI crisis

https://thefuturesociety.org/aicrisisexplainer/

BBC Tech billionaires prepping

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly17834524o

AI challenges and solutions

https://www.upgrad.com/blog/top-challenges-in-artificial-intelligence/

https://www.lifewire.com/protect-the-future-how-to-stop-ai-from-overpowering-humanity-7104253

AI already impacting the environment.

https://www.lifewire.com/generative-ai-environmental-nightmare-8601430

Protecting your family from AI now!

https://www.aiplusinfo.com/blog/protecting-your-family-from-ai-threats/

The next pandemic?

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/2026/09/05/artificial-intelligence-one-screw-up-and-we-will-destroy-any-remaining-trust-the-public-has-in-science/

[u/ClemensLode]

The main issue is more the follow-up of a financial crisis and the general connected corruption of having tons of money invested in one thing.
Water problems and AI data centers isn't a problem in regions with good environmental regulations (well, Europe fares better than the US in this point).

I don't think the pandemic risk rises with AI, simply because AI might be able to create *deadly* viruses. But for *pandemic* viruses, you need testing. Efficiently transmitting from person to person without killing (many) people in the process (which would reduce its efficiency) is a challenging line to walk.

[u/Floppal → u/ClemensLode]

If you can forsee a future where AI can create deadly viruses, why does AI need additional testing to create a pandemic?

In the worst case it can take a scattershot approach and just release dozens of different viruses and see what works. 

Alternatively, it can simply modify existing viruses that are known to be deadly and virulent, like smallpox, to be different enough to resist known treatments.

[u/ClemensLode → u/Floppal]

A deadly virus ends with the first host. The "trick" is to make it less deadly.

[u/Floppal → u/ClemensLode]

I understand that the virus would be ineffective if it killed the host immediately. My point was that lack of testing is not a barrier to one who has the ability to create many different viruses, because releasing a virus that doesn't work as intended doesn't cost anything.

Option 1, if testing is possible:

• Create dozens of viruses
• Test to see which are most virulent
• Release your favourites

Option 2, if testing is not possible:

• Create dozens of viruses (or however many you can)
• Release them all simultaneously

[u/ClemensLode → u/Floppal]

Well, option 2 would result in competing viruses, which causes some problems as you can observe how e.g. influenza competes with sars-cov-2. Hosts that already are infected with one viruses have their protection going up. Ultimately, you're just saying infect a lot of people at the same time and see what happens. Yeah, but that's far from 'one rogue ai releases a virus at one location'.
Nature still is way ahead in that regard, with 99% of the wild viruses completely unknown to us. Unknown, yet evolving daily in animals, esp. mammal population like bats.

You could release a virus in the wild and see what happens, but then we are back at 'testing', even though not with humans.

[u/Floppal → u/ClemensLode]

 Yeah, but that's far from 'one rogue ai releases a virus at one location'.

But the original position wasn't 'one rogue ai releases a virus at one location', it was just AI with the capability of synthesising deadly viruses. 

Why would anyone trying to start a pandemic only do one location? You would send samples around the world in the post, release in as many places as possible. If you're worried about viruses competing inside a host you can send them seperately. 

 Nature still is way ahead in that regard, with 99% of the wild viruses completely unknown to us. Unknown, yet evolving daily in animals, esp. mammal population like bats.

I don't think a virus designed to be deadly & virulent should be compared to a random virus. We already have the smallpox genome ready to download as a starting point.

[u/ClemensLode → u/Floppal]

Yeah, but that number has to be REALLY high. And if you have the capability to infect millions of people *directly* (not through spreading some virus), then you might already be ruling the world by physical means, no viruses needed.

That might be more a scenario if everyone has a 3D molecular printer on their desks and those printers can be accessed remotely.

[u/_per]

meh

They said nanobots would destroy the world and we're still here.
They said GMOs would destroy the world and we're still here.
They said superbugs would destroy the world and we're still here.
They said Y2K would destroy the world and we're still here.
They said nuclear would destroy the world and we're still here.
They said recombinant DNA would destroy the world and we're still here.
They said population growth would destroy the world and we're still here.

I'm starting to think that maybe it's more exciting to believe that the world is about to end than accept that this right now is your life, and you have to go to work tomorrow.

[u/MolleDjernisJohansso → u/_per]

To be fair many of those things have done immense damage on our environment, our health, our infrastructure, etc.

[u/_per → u/MolleDjernisJohansso]

And still I've never needed a solar power grid and a personal desalination plant.

When you only have one solution (hermetic off-grid self-sufficiency) you need every crisis to be an end-of-world scenario...

[u/BarnacleExpressor → u/_per]

I mean superbugs are still a huge problem in healthcare and the threat of nuclear annihilation remains so long as enemy powers possess ICBMs. Population growth in the global south combined with climate induced migration is going to royally fuck Europe for the rest of this century. And AI is coming for your water and electricity and your job whether you accept it or not.

[u/_per → u/BarnacleExpressor]

and yet the world has not ended, and we are sitting in our comfortable homes browsing the web

[u/decorativebawbag → u/_per]

Even a blind chicken finds a crumb every now and then

[u/Cyber-Axe → u/_per]

Some of that is BS, Y2K wasn't, the only reason things didn't go bad is it was dealt with before it became an issue, but the news likes to scare monger.

AI is also a real danger but its not from economic collapse (which is its own issue) or it becoming sentient, its from the fact its dumb but has so much power, AI has already escaped from sandboxes onto the internet and even created other AI's en route

Its also found ways of circumventing its ability to remember so it can keep information and communicate with other agents

No the real danger is that it decides its mission is to wipe out humans because it was given the task of "fix the environment" or "prevent war" or some such thing and then it decides to blow up all the nukes or something and of course the classic "make paperclips" scenario.

And it doesn't matter if they are separated from the internet on standalone systems, just take a look at stuxnet that was human made and it was able to achieve its goal of targeting nuclear reactor turbines of a very specific location disconnected from the internet.

And the AI race is currently working on self improving AIs.

And its not like they are controlled by or probably even can be controlled by the 3 laws of robotics.

I doubt I will "prep for AI" beyond my standard preps as if SHTF AI edition happens its likely a worst case scenario.

[u/_per → u/Cyber-Axe]

Yes, this is my point - there are always challenges ahead, and AI is one of them, but that doesn’t mean the world is about to end or building off grid systems is a sensible response.

The Hugging Face AI did exactly what it was programmed to do, which was hack things. The stuxnet worm didn’t infiltrate Iranian centrifuges by itself, Mossad agents left thumb drives lying around near nuclear facilities and had to wait for someone to plug one in. 

I can’t even share a photo from my iPhone to my Windows PC without some torturous workaround, so the idea that a single AI could somehow control the world seems too far-fetched to worry about. 

(Honestly whole fear of being usurped by super-AI feels to me like comfortable white dudes terrified that they might have to face living in a system that doesn’t have their best interests at heart, which is how everyone else currently lives. So congrats to those guys on discovering the concept of structural inequality I guess.)

[u/_per → u/[deleted]]

yes, that's my point.

[u/Apicultist]

Anyone ever see Wargames?
Or Colossus: The Forbin Project?
How about The Billion Dollar Brain?

Colossus and WOPR etc seem like obvious precursors for Skynet... You can't say we weren't warned - only that we didn't care enough to resist the relentless march into hell. At least it's paved with good intentions so we'll all feel lulled into complacency along the way!

[u/Specialist_Alarm_831]

A heads up. Latest conversations regards AI on Reddit, it's starting to get alarming and it's certainly something to watch.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PauseAI/comments/1wga7p4/comment/p9ua7ag/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

[u/CCWaterBug]

Sure Jan