I know some of it is from the problem of cyber security issues, very real ones, that stem from ai models, both the llm kind and the more advanced multi modal coding variety that have made finding vulnerabilities and then incorporating attacks into home brewed or nation state brewed targeting much, much easier and faster. This has resulted in very real network problems, and isn’t expected to get easier to defend against because it’s not like you just update for ai facilitated hacks and you’re done, they are just going to increase in numbers until basically an entirely different method of protecting systems is employed.

This has made many people nervous and believe that it’s only a matter of time before financial systems, energy sector systems, water systems, basically all the critical infrastructure, are attacked and have to go offline until long term fixes are found.

There will be people saying ai is all an illusion and just next word predictive analytics that can’t even do basic math, but those days are over, it was true months ago, but the modern models are much, much more capable and llms aren’t what’s being used to do the hacking, llms are being used to find known vulnerabilities that were largely ignored or orgs have been too slow to patch, but that’s not the only method being used to find new vulnerabilities. It’s a problem, cybersecurity in the ai companies have said they’re probably 18 months away from developing models that are specifically for defensive cybersecurity, so even they can’t and aren’t profiting from this issue right now, so it’s not just hype.

That being said, I’ve always been a believer in having a few days at least of food, water, medical supplies, and power generation. I don’t believe more than that will be necessary because if it is, we’re all screwed and no amount of prepping will ensure safety and over stocking will just make you a target and put a target on your family and property. Just be smart and have the basics you would need for a really bad weather event. You should always have that.