{"slug": "when-is-it-worth-personally-preparing-for-ai-disasters", "title": "When Is It Worth Personally Preparing for AI Disasters?", "summary": "A new personal preparedness guide argues that AI could dramatically upend the world within 2-4 years, citing forecasts from those closest to the technology. The author recommends actions such as helping improve AI safety and reading existing guides by Benjamin Todd and Zvi Mowshowitz, while cautioning against excessive prepper-style stress. The post complements broader AGI preparedness resources with a short practical checklist for severe but survivable disruptions.", "body_md": "**Context: **Someone asked me “what can I do to prepare for scenarios where AI goes really wrong?” This post describes my current best guess. Let me know if you have better ideas.\n\n**Consider taking the following actions:**\n\nThere is a real chance that *AI-that-dramatically-upends-the-world-as-we-know-it *is coming [really soon](https://www.forethought.org/research/preparing-for-the-intelligence-explosion#:~:text=There%E2%80%99s%20now%20a,3). Potentially even within the next 2-4 years, if you trust those closest to the technology (e.g. see [here](https://www.vetta.org/2011/12/goodbye-2011-hello-2012/), [here](https://www.businessinsider.com/google-deepmind-ceo-demis-hassabis-agi-new-human-era-2026-6) and [here](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/6Xgy6CAf2jqHhynHL/what-2026-looks-like) for context on what I mean).\n\nWhile I could spend some time obsessing over[ technical definitions](https://deepmind.google/research/publications/66938/), I think the “upends-the-world-as-we-know-it” framing is better for getting my point across.\n\nBy “dramatically upends the world as we know it”, I mean things on the scale of: explosive [AI-enabled economic growth](https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w35155/w35155.pdf), [fully](https://www.forethought.org/research/the-industrial-explosion#fully-autonomous-robot-factories) [automated robot factories](https://www.forethought.org/research/the-industrial-explosion#fully-autonomous-robot-factories), [rapid advances in science and medicine that sound like sci-fi](https://darioamodei.com/essay/machines-of-loving-grace#2-neuroscience-and-mind), [novel weapons](https://www.forethought.org/research/preparing-for-the-intelligence-explosion#:~:text=Novel%20risks%20from%20destructive%20technologies%2C%20such%20as%20bioweapons%2C%20drone%20swarms%2C%20nanotechnology%2C%20and%20technologies%20we%20haven%E2%80%99t%20yet%20concretely%20anticipated%3B), and [so on.](https://ai-2040.com/?choices=plan-a-root#:~:text=Five%20centuries%20in%20five%20years%3A%20What%20pausing%20at%20human%2Dlevel%20feels%20like)\n\nOverall this would likely be a far more volatile and intense world (e.g. at its worst involving [war](https://oscardelaney.substack.com/p/will-competition-over-advanced-ai) or [other extreme scenarios](https://www.forethought.org/research/ai-enabled-coups-how-a-small-group-could-use-ai-to-seize-power#41-coups-using-military-ai)) than what people are used to.[[1]](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/feed.xml#fnz76zeufjuj)\n\nSo, what can you personally do to prepare for such a world? Firstly, I’ll note that some great pieces on the topic of personal AGI preparedness have already been written.\n\nI’d especially recommend reading [Benjamin Todd’s](https://benjamintodd.substack.com/p/how-can-an-ordinary-person-prepare) and [Zvi Mowshowitz’s](https://thezvi.substack.com/p/ai-practical-advice-for-the-worried) posts.[[2]](https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/feed.xml#fnyrfccvov68)\n\nPlease also keep in mind that** one of the best actions you can take is helping improve the situation humanity is in. **There aren’t enough people working on making AI go well, and [you could use your skills and background to have a huge impact on all this](https://bluedot.org/).\n\nAnyway -- this post is best understood as a complement to more comprehensive AGI preparedness guides like the ones linked above. My intention here is to provide a short, practical checklist for severe but survivable disruptions to daily life.\n\nGenerally speaking, stressing out over disaster preparedness (think [“preppers”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prepper_(disambiguation))) doesn’t strike me as particularly rational. It seems more like an aesthetic than a calculated choice. [3] However, I do think there’s a strong case to be made that some\n\nThe worst disaster would be one in which misaligned AI leads to the death of everyone on Earth. While the exact details and likelihood of this threat are up for debate, I believe it should be taken seriously as a possibility. If you are interested in learning more about possible pathways to such scenarios, see [this literature review](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/wnnkD6P2k2TfHnNmt/threat-model-literature-review).\n\nHowever, there’s probably not that much you can do to prepare for worlds where existentially catastrophic misalignment occurs (beyond[ helping prevent it](https://bluedot.org/courses/technical-ai-safety)). Even the most [luxurious and high-tech bunkers ](https://nypost.com/2023/06/05/sam-altman-who-warned-ai-poses-risk-of-extinction-to-humanity-is-also-a-doomsday-prepper/)wouldn’t help you in such a situation.\n\nSo let’s [focus our efforts on what we might be able to prepare for.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayerhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayer) Other potential AI-related disasters may include (but are of course not limited to):\n\nHowever, if the world is deeply and unprecedentedly transformed in a really bad way, there is (by definition) only so much you can do to prepare beforehand. You could try for as much [mental resilience](https://80000hours.org/career-guide/how-to-be-successful/#2-if-helpful-make-mental-health-your-top-priority) as possible, but even that would only take you so far.\n\nIf we end up in a world where we all die, there’s not much you can do at that point. If we end up in a world where things mostly continue as normal, there’s also not much point in preparing. So preparedness only seems to make sense in worlds where things go badly wrong, but individual preparation can still help. For example, AI-enabled pandemics and cyberattacks seem like they could be prime candidates here.\n\n**A useful rule is to prioritise preparations that are cheap, broadly useful, and don’t require you to predict exactly what happens. **Specifically, you should consider:\n\nPersonally I think the goal for personal preparedness should be to spend perhaps a week and a few hundred pounds becoming more resilient than you otherwise would be, **then return your attention to helping prevent the bad outcomes in the first place.**\n\nEven if the eventual outcome is good, the transitional period could still be difficult.\n\nI would also recommend reading [this LessWrong post ](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/DHvymwaGXHwwrwZQP/eleven-practical-ways-to-prepare-for-agi)by John-Clark Levin. I agree most with recommendations 1, 2, 4, 8, 10, and 11. I disagree most with 3. I think having kids is probably good despite AI risk (+ for both [population ethics-esque reasons](https://benthams.substack.com/p/its-good-to-create-happy-people-a) and [pronatalist reasons](https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/158/malcolm-simone-collins-why-are-birth-rates-plummeting-and-how-much-does-it-matter/)).\n\nThat said, I want to think through this position more before having kids. At some point I’ll probably write a post called “Having Kids on the Eve of Superintelligence: A Literature Review.” Let me know if you’ve thought about this topic and have strong views either way.\n\nExtreme preparedness measures are also prohibitively expensive for most.\n\nVPNs seem [overrated](https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/vpns-encryption-wifi-rcna9348) for cybersecurity, though they are useful for evading censorship.\n\nIt’s also probably worth keeping at least one offline or otherwise isolated backup of important documents, photographs and data.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/when-is-it-worth-personally-preparing-for-ai-disasters", "canonical_source": "https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/kWKmB8d7C39qG9cqE/when-is-it-worth-personally-preparing-for-ai-disasters", "published_at": "2026-07-26 12:07:41+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-26 12:35:51.744372+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-safety", "ai-policy", "artificial-intelligence"], "entities": ["Benjamin Todd", "Zvi Mowshowitz", "Forethought Foundation", "DeepMind", "BlueDot Impact"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/when-is-it-worth-personally-preparing-for-ai-disasters", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/when-is-it-worth-personally-preparing-for-ai-disasters.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/when-is-it-worth-personally-preparing-for-ai-disasters.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/when-is-it-worth-personally-preparing-for-ai-disasters.jsonld"}}