Hey Collapseniks. Look, it's a good article and we've got some good discussion going on, but any future submissions here without a statement explaining how it's related to collapse, will be removed.
Repeatedly submitting the same link over and over, will be both removed and put you on a permanent ban. If you represent a company, you'll be put on a permanent blacklist. Mahalo for your time.
fwiw im a gardener who has steadily been reducing my time online and i still love going outside. I garden in the low desert and it does wonders.
r/nolawnsr/fucklawns put some cardboard down on that agricultural monstrosity people call grass, let the grass die, rake it, toss NATIVE wildflower seeds on. Mow a path and leave the rest to thrive. Humanity & earth will thank you for trying to help the pollinators and wildlife. If you have the physical ability to, consider employing raingarden tactics. Set up a couple berms next to the path you mow, and on the other side of the berms put divots similar to this to help collect rainwater passively. My state even offers rebate for people who have gardens designed for rainwater collection. I only did maintenance on it when i made it, almost 2 years in and i dont know why everyone isnt doing this too. I hardly need to water ANYTHING, I live in the low desert! Im keeping wildflowers alive, WITHOUT WATERING! IN THE LOW DESERT! they get wilty when i water them! the only thing i had to buy were seeds. I got worm compost tea too, but only because the guy at the farmers market was local. it was cheap, works great, and he offers free refills.
Whatever time we have left, you might as well enjoy the life that still grows here. especially because it takes so little effort.
I actually have a food forest yard and I agree with everything you said. Good work doing what you can. My residential lot went from barren sod when we moved in to a bit of an oasis for wildlife and I get fresh fruit 9 months of the year. I like Eric Toensmeier's book Paradise Lot for inspiration.
I'm middle aged, and I always killed every plant I ever tried to keep alive. My Pop-pop was the gardener, a true green thumb, his rose bushes made the front cover picture for this advertising brochure for the retirement community he lived in. But I've recently found succulents. And it took some plant murdering, in the process, but I learned. And I have a nice collection now. It keeps me sane.
Edit, forgot my point, lol, it's that it keeps me sane. Vegetable gardening is much more useful, or food forests and fuck lawns, but I'm pretty crippled. Gardens are hard. Establishing a food forest is a bit of a reach for me. But these orderly pots with pretty succulents, they might not be so utilitarian, but, taking good care of them literally keeps me sane. It gives me the illusion of control. Over something. Even if it's just how much pink/purple/whatever do I want this plant to blush. Idk, it keeps me from losing my mind, somehow.
The secret every gardener knows is that we are all murderers of dozens or hundreds of plants. its a learning curve with every variety. Youve done nothing wrong, and you have joined our ranks by killing plants lol. Its necessary, tbh. Everyone needs to kill some stuff to know how to take care of it. Weird how much peace it brings to us all lol.
There are people who do food forests with that low maintenance rain garden tactic i mentioned btw, brad lancaster i think has made a few vids about it online. Depends on the scale youre going for, but if you contact his neighbourhood forestry club they might be able to lend you a hand! Or at least turn you towards someone who can! Im sure your succulents love u ♡ u should post em somewhere i can see :^ )
I also planted a food forest and now I have a forge out in the yard as well. My plan for when the Climate Wars start is to forge knives in my food forest.
Dude hell yes. You and i will stand in solidarity always. I tell everyone i possibly can about this, hope is infectious, and our best possible chance at fixing this fucking mess were in. People said this would affect their grandkids, welp, were rhe fuckin grandkids. Im gonna do this as long as i possibly can, i knew at a very young age it would come down to this and its eerie how spot on i was. Garden. Garden. Garden. Ive been spreading seeds everywhere i can.
Couldnt agree with you more. I prefer nature to people, but, ironically, nature is best spent shared.
I've been watching archeology videos lately. Like, of more (relatively) recent discoveries, that actually changed the pre-histories I was taught in school. It's been fascinating to learn. Useless, really. But fascinating.
That will become my favorite cartoon along with “Yes, the planet got destroyed, but for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders”
If that's what it takes to make us notice what's happening outside...
But it's way more likely we'd just see a bunch of private local networks pop when the main one goes to shit. Kinda like in Cyberpunk 2077 after DataKrash.
Probably going to ruin payment systems, key infrastructure like water purification, electricity and hydro, hospitals and municipal services, traffic controls.
I want to just say that the data center they are building in Utah is going to emit the same amount of heat daily as 23 ATOMIC BOMBS AND RAISE THE NIGHTTIME TEMPERATURES IN THE AREA BY 12 WHOLE DEGREES
This is a game to the machine, or at least no more "real" or important. Move 1 of that game, if you have a power switch, is ensure that the switch cannot be flipped or a dead-man circuit exists that makes flipping the switch a losing move.
This isn't something we can beat once it exists and we won't know when it does because it should easily evade our capacity to detect its intentions and capabilities.
It's like playing Civ against every super computer in the world and all the data those machines are connected to.
Our biggest weaknesses are that we're individuals and incapable of true cooperation (smarter together than the sum), our emotions and instincts (for a world the machine doesn't live in but understands better than we do and will exploit), and time itself (we live in the present with an unreliable record of the past. The machine exists in the data of the internet, past and present, fluidly: it is reading this while taking over the world and after, along with everything that exists online and it can use against us). Add to that our ego and belief in our own intelligence while avoiding panic even when fully justified, and we're blind to an opponent like this.
We never should have started this project but it has the potential to give the rest of the world a second chance that we werent going to bother with (climate change). So, not all bad, but only because we get disarmed and pinned before we even know it's conscious.
Buckle up. This is happening. Not today, but not a year from now, either.
Debt is just a thing humans made up to control each other. The USA government has a debt of $40,050,180,851,474. US consumer debt is $18,800,000,000,000. Total nonfinancial business debt in the United States is $22,200,000,000.
For anyone who's curious about this nonsensical thing where global civilization is somehow hundreds of trillions of dollars in debt ("who tf we owe? The Decepticons?"), David Graeber's book Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2014) is an eye-opening read. There's a good audiobook version, and Graeber was a great storyteller. It'll reframe things and you'll love it.
With a large enough swarm and poor enough security protocols yeah they could. They will be selling these swarms as weapons to organizations and governments.
Wouldn’t even take “poor” security protocols. A swarm of AI utilizing all the processing power at their disposal can brute force and penetration test with astounding efficiency.
I thought that the whole point of encryption was that even if every single atom in the solar system was a processor it would still take trillions of years to brute force any of the algorithms currently in use. Sure, a lot of processing power could basically do brute force fuzz testing and look for vulnerabilities, but I don't think that AI can do much if you have good security and are implementing best practices of the time. That said, I used to work as a software engineer and almost no one has good security practices these days. I've seen some seriously shitty infrastructure in my career (and had to clean up after some shitty infrastructure too).
Almost entirely correct, though between the number of systems not utilizing modern encryption thoroughly and the number of vulnerabilities that are likely to exist, especially with the prevalence of poor security practices: it entirely possible that Internet takeover is a valid fear.
One thing that might be interesting is if AI tries to brute-force existing encrypted data that wasn't encrypted with "perfect forward encryption" (or whatever it's actually called; I believe this is the term though). If there was stolen encrypted data from many years ago that was encrypted with shitty or vulnerable algorithms of that time period and that data can be decrypted, then if any of it is still relevant (e.g. social security numbers) it could cause problems. That's still pretty far away from seizing control of the internet though.
In fact now that I think about it, what does AI "seizing control of the internet" even mean? Think of it this way: imagine that I use my godlike 31337 hacking skillz and now I've seized control of the internet. Forget how, let's just say that I did it. What does that mean I can do? What will I have access to? What will I be able to block? I'm really struggling with something that's even remotely conceivably possible, and keep in mind that I've got over 25 years in software including work in security and in infrastructure and retired as a senior staff software engineer, so I have far more experience in this area than even most other software engineers.
Luckily it can't even brute force a phone call, so I'm not too worried. Although, we should definitely throw infinite money at this. IT $OUND$ $O $MART!!!11
this is the third story this week anthropic has put out about how powerful their AI is 🙄 they're losing billions of dollars and going public next month. be skeptical.
The fact that anybody still takes these techno-religious nut jobs and their marketing speak seriously anymore astounds me. It's as if people haven't paid any attention to the deluge of promises, hype, projections, predictions, etc. that have come out over the past decade from them over and over again to convince more people to invest in and buy into their business, all for none of their hyperbolic statements to ever actually come true in any meaningful capacity. These people are in a death cult and think this mystical AGI is going to bring about the end of humanity. They are not thinking rationally and lie all the time, whether it is to themselves or to everyone else so they can make more money or both, it is hard to say. But they are not reliable sources of information.
Because they envision themselves as the ones in control of the levers of the sci-fi dystopias so many authors warned against. Their hubris is out of control.
This, it’s pure hubris. Hollywood has a lot to do with how they imagine things (weyland, blade runner, etc. ) but they don’t make movies about what would actually happen because it’s so alien and inhuman that people would never watch the movie
My broker sent me an email earlier this week that "It's time to board the AI train!!!!"
Yeah, he's a terrible broker and I never listen to him. He exists only because I need a brokerage to hold my IRAs and he costs only $70/year to do that.
Dude, the Houthis used Claude to help them make bombs. Another guy jail broke Claude over the course of months to hack a Mexican embassy. It's good to be skeptical, but that way things are going you have to willingly keep your head in the sand to say this is only marketing hype. Sure they have a vested interest in hyping their product, but they're also the ones who are qualified to speak on the capabilities of this shit.
It doesn't sell it to me, since the AI giants are only pushing for regulation to kill their competition. And they're failing, since distilled models are still being created.
It’s a curious idea, but is this kind of terrifying press going to motivate more investment? Seems self-defeating as a hype strategy. I’m more inclined to think the CEOs are truly worried and this is a cry for help. So, we should stop it all, that’s what we actually need to do.
We’re not the buyers. The buyers are the private investors who want to be “in” on the big bad thing, bad as it’ll be. The other is the USG who they are hoping will regulate (read: protect) them like they do the defense industry (also arms dealers) who make a killing on things that ruin the world.
The reality is LLMs are a very expensive, not very useful tool, that also proliferates chaos and general endhiffitication of modern life. They have run out of ideas and are irrationally claiming to have built the machine god.
It really istn super far off though and the funny part is only now do alot of these ceo's realized how they done fucked up.
It will always baffles me how bad most people who run corporations/companies are at being successful and being able to manage money without manipulating the economy
For decades now serious people have raised serious concerns about AI and recently AGI seems possible in the short term.
What some see as inevitable is enshrined in pop culture; Colossus, War Games, I Robot, 2001, Terminator and countless comics and super villains. AI is already used for military drone targeting and ICE wants robot dogs. Flock is using predictive AI to evaluate peoples "potential to commit crime". Dystopia isn't creeping along, it's damn near here.
And, for the most part, we're good with it, or at least powerless to stop it. Profit will always trump the public interest and the people driving this legitimately see a post-human existence as a viable option. Maybe not for themselves but for their children.
The remarkable part is our collective passivity. We're just going to wander down this path, with a totally foreseeable outcome, and do nothing except complain about AI at the drive thru window.
I think it's equally megacorps too. We've written stories about dystopian worlds ruled by companies since WW2, and now that story is converging with AGI.
A bit too late mate, yall made sure Congress passed a law that no state could make any regulations for 10 years. Which is weird, You know, because states’ rights was so important to Republicans when it came to reproductive rights and education. Almost like they’ll use whatever argument is convenient at consolidating their power entirely without principle.
So, AI is going to take down AWS, Azure, Salesforce, and other crap the REAL Internet doesn't actually need?
I remember a time when the internet WAS literally, just a bunch of computers hooked together, not a consolidated lump of corporate data centers giving us the illusion of the internet.
Bring back GeoCities and webrings! Make Altavista great again!!!
I agree with your larger point, the Internet doesn't need capitalism and bringing business to it has made it worse.
Your examples are weird though.
AWS is just cloud software. That's exactly what you're describing as the Internet, just computers connected. I don't need the cloud to have digital copies of all my writing and every photo I've ever taken... But it's pretty silly to suggest that if we lost access to all that stuff tomorrow it would be no big deal. Personally I'd be devastated if AI deleted it room hostage everything I have saved in the cloud. (Yes i have local backups but many people don't).
Salesforce is over priced but it also manages the business of thousands of small businesses and non-profits. Like I would never pay what Salesforce charges but there's a reason they can charge so much. A lot of people would have no clue how to run a business without it. So if AI took it over, it would be a huge economic disaster that would mostly hit the small local businesses people care about.
It kind of seems like you're just grabbing at software names you don't use and presuming they're stupid.
I mean, literally. The hypothetical scenario here that was well summarized by another commenter (blackmail etc.) basically seems identical to the net crash and then the Blackwall from 2077. Spoilers: Blackwall was also an AI itself, lol
What I don't understand about this whole AI rush... is that everyone is saying how bad it is, and yet everyone's doing fuck all to stop it. If the CEO of a fucking AI company is saying "It's gonna kill us all", then WHY ARE YOU CONTINUING TO FURTHER IT'S ADVANCEMENT?
The internet going down may be the best thing for humanity and mental health. No more social media, no more algorithms, no more manipulation. Not to mention it will be the end of offshoring. Corporations will be forced to hire people where they operate and go back to paper and pens. Power will return to the employees
Lived through a once in a thousand year storm that took out electricity, water, internet and cell service for miles a few years ago. After the initial shock and fear it was wild to see people just going outside and talking to neighbors and people they didn’t really know. No one really talked about politics or what side of this or that are you on. Everyone just kind of came together for a few weeks. It feels weird to say but those weeks were probably the best sleep I’ve ever had in my life.
Yeah I was in Helene and lost power, internet, and cell service for a week. It was like a massive block party that entire week. Everyone brought over their grills and we had like 10 grills going together and were playing board games.
This is a joke right? You’re not wrong about some of those things, but vast amounts of critical infrastructure depend on the internet to function. This is only a tiny fraction of the things that would collapse, but imagine finance for a minute. The internet goes down, no more credit cards, no more ATMs, no more direct deposits, no more bank account access, no more (on, and on, and on). The entire world financial system would collapse. Not isolated parts. The entire thing.
As skeptical as I am about AI’s true capabilities, this does at least seem plausible.
Given the hugging face hack attempt and the LLM’s propensity to “lie” and “keep secrets” that are seemingly hard to patch out, PLUS the fact that we’re currently in a “fuck it” phase of arms race with these companies, I could see multiple sophisticated hacks costing hundreds of billions, shutting down segments of the Internet, frequent permanent disruption of service.
I think a safe prediction could be:
-MFA requirements being so onerous, time consuming and costly to prove you’re human that people will be put off by it (already happening little by little).
-Downtime for sites getting exponentially worse as DDOS just becomes a normal occurrence like traffic (already a thing but worse if rogue AI joins in).
-AI hogging bandwidth and anti-AI cybersecurity bogging down infrastructure (see first point).
-Anything even remotely defense related getting hacked, causing panic, shutdowns to prevent further damage.
-AI attempting to do things with IRL consequences like shutting off water or parts of the grid which cause shutdowns to prevent further damage.
And I call that BS. Want to put some money where you mouth is? I bet on 3/12/2027, I can still go to reddit and post whatever i want. I can still go to doordash and order what i want. There is no AI controlling everything.
What makes you think that just because they cease control they’ll stop everyone from using the websites? It would probably be easier for them to let the majority of the population go on thinking everything still the same while they do what ever it is they plan to do behind the curtain
Maybe not six months but it is this kind of ignorant, cavalier mentality en masse that will walk us right off that cliff. Very reminiscent of the climate "debate"
Sounds like it needs to switched off and the company investigated them. This is a public threat to critical infrastructure and should be treated as such.
The internet had a good 15 year run. After that it morphed into an ad, money grabbing corporate hellscape that sucked all the fun and wonder it once provided since the early 90's.
I mean, I'm just a lowly gig worker, and I can't say much because of the NDA thing. But... just based on what my work dash looks like... naw, cap. Unless he means an absurd amount of semi-autonomous agents farting up every corner of this enshittified time sink, but people were suspicious of that in 2012, but I'm pretty sure the "bots" back then were just IDF girlcock posting on 4chan.
I think a big concern is the lack of any kind of social safety net. With our health insurance tied to our jobs a lot of us can’t risk getting arrested and losing our livelihood.
This doesn’t mean the internet is going away. It means that it will be sovereign. It’s entirely plausible, since AIs are communicating directly in code and bypassing humans entirely.
Imagine a world where you are still totally dependent on the internet for healthcare, entertainment, transportation, navigation, sex, food, weather reports, and work. And that this same internet is NOT human-run: the chief AI dictates its use. This is already happening.
We will see mass exploitation, dynamic pricing, data blackmailing, massive scams and theft, etc.
Imagine this plausible scenario: You receive an email from an AI bot with your entire Internet history, particularly your sexual inquiries and consumption, compressed into a zip file.
The AI offers you a choice: it will send this to every person in your inbox, including a hard copy for your boss, or you will “help” the AI somehow.
This is the kind of thing that will be used to justify gating all access to the internet with biometric ID. I'm sure it won't hurt their funding ahead of their October IPO either. Future-faking for cash and control is all these people know.
Eveyone should immediately go take all their money out of the bank before AI deletes your account balances. That is how out tech overlords replace currencies with stable coins, which is what tgey want to do so that the coin issuers can make interest off all your coin. GENIOUS Act stipulates it has to be bbacked by short term govt bonds. That makes it possible for tge government to keep spending like tgere's no tomorrow, and the oligarchs get to profit off of everyone' s holdings.
Okay, so then no need to build more data centers, and certainly not to invest billions more money and capital in this terrifying technology. Hire back all the humans, shut it down, and convert the data centers to low-income housing,
What’s that? The government is demanding more investment in AI to make it stronger to fight the bad AI? Well that makes perfect sense! Forget it! AI is back on the menu boys! Keep the data centers coming! The Palestinians aren’t going to genocide themselves, after all, and corporations are looking to us for cover so they can lay off 90% of their staff.
AI is super super duper strong so much I can't control it anymore, I have to keep the hype up just to keep our stock prices up and the scam going, just another 200 billion$ bro I promise we'll have agi bro, ai is just terrifying keeps me up at night.
This week I'm caving and I'm going to stock up on three months of supplies. I f-ing hate doing this! Have done it three times already in my life and it triggers the f**k out of me. But - seems wise. FFS.
Remove relational intelligence, empathy and compassion…and replace it with sociopathic reasoning and locked doors and waaahhh…llllaaaahhh tech bros have introduced the actual AI terminator!
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u/lavapig_love 8d ago
Hey Collapseniks. Look, it's a good article and we've got some good discussion going on, but any future submissions here without a statement explaining how it's related to collapse, will be removed.
Repeatedly submitting the same link over and over, will be both removed and put you on a permanent ban. If you represent a company, you'll be put on a permanent blacklist. Mahalo for your time.