They grounded all planes in the US today, and it makes me think about system failures, and how when AI takes over, the first thing I would really notice is that the wifi is out. I can perfectly imagine it. I’ll check my phone and see that there’s no cell signal either. “Emergency calls only.” Then what would I do? So, no internet, which by itself isn’t anything because the wifi goes out all the time for no reason, but the no cell signal part would be something else. No way to call people, and I don’t know how to find out if it’s down or is it just me.
TV? All streaming. I do have an analog antenna though. Digital is so fragile. It really is nothing but empty lights, in the end.
If wifi and cell don’t come back after turning things on and off, taking the SIM card out and putting it back in, I really think it would be enough for me to plug in the antenna and check the over-the-air news. Might take me fifteen minutes maybe, waiting to see if things come back, but I’ll take that step.
Having no phone or internet would make me annoyed and slightly worried but this is the part that would tell me if something is actually really wrong. Are there any live broadcasts? If there’s no news anywhere, or if stations are not even on air, that would be my end of the world indicator.
Radio would work too, probably. Radio is totally more robust than TV and I don’t know why I think that. Why do old and simpler things seem tougher than newer, complex things?
If TV is out, I’m totally going to go outside and see what people are doing. Where would I go? There’s no town square. To a bar maybe? Or the library. I want to see if people are behaving normally and confirm if I might just be having the worst tech day. It’s the last check on normalcy.
Another thing that could happen and straddle that normalcy/disaster line is the power. I can see it being the first thing to go out too. The power goes out. I go to my phone to check PG&E and see that wifi and cell are out. Nothing on TV. What do you do then?