HarryShearer.com

I make no claim to particular expertise about technology. But I can and do read. This week brought word from several authoritative sources that the internet as we know it was built, hurriedly (move fast), with major security protections left half-done (break things). That’s been okay, given the frequency of software updates, up til now.

Now is the moment, per other authoritative accounts including from the AI companies themselves, when LLM’s have developed the capacity to find and exploit the vulnerabilities that rushing, and greed, had left in the software. You don’t need Mr. Amodei’s nightmarizing to know that this is a critical moment.

Are the AI giants going to slow down and allow the legacy software companies the time to fortify their products against an onslaught of “agents”? They’ve got billions in non-cancellable “investments” to try to pay off as soon as humanly possible, lest they usher in a period of what one might call Bubblemaxxing.

It’s been clear for some time that A-level installations—nuclear and other power plants, water filtration and distribution facilities, you finish the list—should, as a first-line defense against disruption if not catastrophe, disconnect from the public internet and interconnect their facilities through a private intranet. If that’s happening, I haven’t heard about it.

And, assuming the AI thing is still around next year, the rest of us might want to start preparing for the end of the internet as we know it. It’s been fun.