AI is the New Electricity, so What Happens when There is a Blackout?

A Half-Baked One Just After the Event

I am in Galicia, Spain, and we went through a bit of a surreal experience yesterday. I write this after my breakfast in the morning, but I am not sure when I will get to post it, as the Internet is still very patchy.

At 12:30 PM yesterday, the electricity went off. I only realized it at 1 PM, when I had a call scheduled and I saw my wifi was not available. As I went down to the basement to check the switch, a neighbour (and friend) called asking whether I had power. “Well, I guess it must be out in the whole town, like the last time”, I thought in a split second as I turned around to go back upstairs. Then, she mentioned there was no electricity in Madrid either. “Ok, now… that is weird”, I thought, my steps a tiny bit heavier.

Soon after, WhatsApps started coming in through several groups: electricity is down all over Spain, but also in Portugal, and parts of France and Germany… Many other countries were soon added and deleted from the list in the minutes that followed. The expected chaos and misinformation at a time like this...

I had a déjà vu: What started just like an odd event (reminded me of when I heard of the first plane hitting the Twin Towers) became something scary (like when the second plane hit). A cyberattack seems more plausible to my reptile brain than an operational error! And I can’t help but wonder: Is this a natural reflex or a result of how primed I am by all the news around? Maybe a mix of the two…

I quickly managed my panic, though, and something else became very clear: how much we depend on electricity!

- I could not work much (well, I could think and write on my notepad, but that part does not feel like working, does it?)

- I could not get the car out of the garage (my husband figured out how to open the door manually once he got back…) Hey! We all have our limitations! And there was no light!

- Food in the fridge and freezer would start to go bad (and I was lucky to be able to warm up food because we have a gas stove, unlike many people nowadays)

- Gas stations were rationing gas (to keep fuel for hospital generators)

- Mobile networks collapsed and it was difficult to get information. (I did get news from someone who had access to an analogue radio. I guess I could have gone down to the car, but honestly, once I controlled the panic, I decided that it was best to relax and let the news come to me.)

It did not affect me in the countryside, but in cities, there were no traffic lights, no metro, no trains.... And these inconveniences are nothing compared with having your dad go through surgery at this time, as it happened to somebody I know and probably many other people.

If you have already watched one of those movies or series that describe a blackout episode, this may all sound familiar. I had not watched any of those. Maybe that’s why the realization somewhat caught me by surprise.

The whole thing felt a bit like Covid - maybe the unexpected aspect of it and the sudden lack of connection - but also the opposite at the same time. If this lasted, we’d keep the physical connection with those around us, but not the digital connection that linked us to those far away.

It also got me thinking about something I hear often: AI is the new electricity! Indeed, AI is like electricity in that it powers much of our digital world, whether we see it or not (more often than not, we don’t!). And as our digital world gets more and more entangled with the physical world, I hope we are paying enough attention to AI Robustness¹ and not only to AI safety² concerning existential risks. The “basic” risks may be more pressing, as it turns out.

It was 16 hours without electricity for us, at a time of the year when the sun only sets at 10:30 PM. It was manageable for most, and I saw nobody around panicking. Today, having woken up to lights on and a patchy internet, we’ll go on with our normal lives, and most of us will forget about it. Hopefully, not all.

1. AI Robustness: Making AI systems resilient against corrupted inputs, edge cases, or distribution shifts

2. AI Safety: Preventing accidents, misuse, or other harmful consequences arising from artificial intelligence (AI) systems. It encompasses machine ethics and AI alignment, which aim to ensure AI systems are moral and beneficial, as well as monitoring AI systems for risks and enhancing their reliability. The field is particularly concerned with existential risks posed by advanced AI models.