The Next Major Grounding Will Be Worse
But they’re pretty convinced that the next 18 months are going to be a hassle, with regular disruptions to services that we rely on.
Key points
- You can do some things to protect yourself, but they fall into the realm of flossing: Install the update when your phone nags you, use passkeys instead of text-message codes, keep a little cash and water around.
- Now, if my sources are correct, we should plan to wake up in Software Beirut, where nothing is broken all the time, but anything might break at any time, and the main skill you need is not being surprised.
- The only people capable of that kind of chaos were governments, and governments know that turning off another country’s lights is exactly the sort of thing that gets answered with missiles.
A lot of accomplished cybersecurity people I’ve spoken with are convinced that the combination of rapidly advancing AI systems, the diffusion of those systems via open-source models, and the rickety state of the world’s software will lead to something like rolling waves of chaos.
Additional details
- Whatever caused today’s ground stop, halting every departure in the country “for reasons of safety” until someone works out what’s going on isn’t a sign that the system is failing.
- And if they go down, hey, we’ll all have problems big enough that the world reading your love letters and poring over your credit-card statement will be the least of them.
- The kids who used to grab a bat and swing at mailboxes can now grab some compute and turn off a town’s refrigerators—not for money or a cause, but because why not?
- Even if today has a boring explanation, the experts I’ve been talking with are pretty sure that plenty of days like this are coming, for two main reasons.
- Gmail and your giant bank are obvious targets, but they also employ armies of very serious, very well-paid people whose whole job is looking for trouble.
How this summary was made: extractive summary — built from the sources' own reporting. It is drawn only from the reporting of the sources listed below — read the originals for full detail. How we summarize →
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