These past few weeks have been scary enough for the living, what with the seemingly overnight barrage of ominous warnings about advanced artificial intelligence posing an existential threat to humanity.
Within a decade, no less.
Granted, any forthcoming annihilation of mankind wouldn’t stem from the pre-trained, partially parameterized models of AI currently assisting your children with their homework.
The potential perpetrator instead would be a far superior and arguably sinister “artificial superintelligence”—ASI—which without human guardrails could supposedly wipe you and me off the face of the planet.
It couldn’t get any worse, right?
Think again.
“End of humanity? Blow-by-blow account of what would happen if the Yellowstone supervolcano erupted now.”
No, this isn’t the latest supermarket tabloid headline or online clickbait, but a new scientific timeline in The Conversation, a widely respected academic authority on everything from science and technology to biomedicine and ethics.
“Around 631,000 years ago—a geological blink of an eye—catastrophe unfolded,” it begins, “and the effects were felt worldwide. This was a super-eruption of the massive volcanic system located in what is now the Yellowstone National Park.”
“We already know that a super-eruption on this scale would be a threat to civilization as we know it. So what exactly would we experience if Yellowstone erupted? We are experts in disasters and volcanoes and what follows is a thought experiment in what might happen in the worst case scenario.”
The modern-day disaster unfolds on an otherwise ordinary morning when “unusual wavy lines” are recorded by Yellowstone’s earthquake monitors, which keep watch over this country’s “sleeping supervolcano.”
“It may sleep,” the authors caution, “but its geological processes never do.”
After several days of the anomalous observations, a tightening cluster of earthquakes is detected beneath Yellowstone’s vast caldera, slowly migrating upward. Think of the magma forcing its way into the earth’s crust during ongoing less-hazardous eruptions in Hawaii.
At first, the timeline continues, the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory (YVO) responds cautiously, mindful “of the need to keep the public informed without causing unnecessary alarm.”
Still, the seismic developments “are worrisome enough that scientists start speculating about a major eruption’s impacts.”
Some 2,000 miles away in the nation’s capital, where politicians have grown accustomed to kicking environmental dilemmas down the road, there’s uncomfortable silence. Privately, however, the commander in chief is heard to whisper it would be “hopeless to try to save everyone.”
Public unrest, meanwhile, escalates dramatically—as do the earthquakes, which are now more frequent and shallower. Magma and pressurized fluids force open fractures in the ground, while Yellowstone’s geyser activity becomes increasingly erratic.
“Even the Old Faithful geyser becomes less faithful,” the authors point out.
Scientists finally hold a press conference, announcing a disturbing 85 to 92 percent probability of a “cataclysmic eruption” within three weeks. Traditional and social media go wild as local evacuations begin in earnest (I don’t know about you, but I was outa here yesterday).
The world’s leaders swing into action, realizing “huge numbers” of Americans must be evacuated and resettled to other countries—and “swiftly” so.
“Some might join the minorities who do not believe the eruption will happen,” it’s noted, “who think their well-stocked underground bunkers will protect them—an overly optimistic belief—or who would rather die at home than live in a foreign land with a devastated world.”
For most, however, any sense of saving themselves is “short-lived,” as the first plume of ash is so tremendously vast it’s visible from north of the Flathead to Denver.
And this, mind you, is just the opening act.
The so-called super-eruption is yet to follow.
Until then, tremendous pressure and scorching heat from the initial blast splinter trees and ignite forests, burying in hot ash and pumice everything man has created.
To our immediate north, “along the Canadian border, heavy ashfall darkens the sky, obstructs roads and disrupts power, water supplies and communication.”
Initially, we’re more fortunate than our neighbors to the south, many “pulverized by the blasts, crisped by the heat, or asphyxiated by the ash … Billings, Montana, the nearest large city, is disappearing beneath what will eventually exceed [6 feet] of ash.”
And then it comes, the mother of all volcanic eruptions, a massive blast unlike anything we’ve ever witnessed before.
Across the country, into Canada and Mexico, everything we’ve taken for granted—food and shelter to fuel and electricity—becomes scarce. Distant countries initially attempt airdrops of humanitarian supplies, until they too are preoccupied with their own existence.
I’ll spare you the remainder of the timeline—of subsequent days, months and years—but suffice it to say every waking day globally “becomes one of survival.”
Fortunately for us, the Yellowstone supervolcano continues to snooze—hopefully for centuries to come. What isn’t sleeping, as I alluded to in the first paragraph, is artificial superintelligence.
Yet unlike Yellowstone’s ticking time bomb, humans—if not naive politicians—have the capability of addressing ASI’s monstrous risks.
For now.
Until it becomes too late.
John McCaslin is a longtime journalist and author who lives in Bigfork.