Doomsday foreplay

It may be time to prepare for the end of the world.

Earlier this year, scientists moved the Doomsday Clock closer to midnight than ever before, citing nuclear threats, military use of AI, and climate change.

It’s not just academics. The world’s uber wealthy are busy preparing for an apocalyptic event or three, with Ilya Sutskever, chief scientist and a co-founder of Open AI saying "we're definitely going to build a bunker before we release AGI.” Although if AGI can’t crack a simple bunker, perhaps it’s not as intelligent as promised.

Everyone has their own personal angle to doomsday prepping. 

While billionaires build enormous getaways in the likes of Hawaii and New Zealand, parents are considering whether traditional education is even worthwhile. Some are turning to alternative schools such as Alpha Austin, which for a cool $60,000 a year helps kids embrace ‘self-driven learning’. Which, let’s be honest, probably involves them eating a lot of stuff off the floor. 

Podcaster and blogger, Jamais Jochim, took a long look at how to prepare the suburbs for the apocalypse, which includes some fairly terrifying detail on where in the house to shoot intruders from (living room) and how to ensure a decent supply of protein (turn your swimming pool into a fish pond).

Even governments are taking it seriously - in the UK, it is recommended that households have supplies for at least three days, while Switzerland is updating its network of ageing nuclear shelters.

This is a trend driven as much by groupthink and FOMO as it is fear, uncertainty, or nihilism. But regardless of the motivations, we might stock up on canned goods. AGI will never see it coming.