Steve Gibson
Software developer and security researcher who founded Gibson Research Corporation, maker of the SpinRite disk maintenance and recovery utility and the ShieldsU...
“The genie has not only escaped the lantern, the lanterns have been mass produced and everybody has their own genie. So why bother?”
Security Now · Software Engineering & Infra · November 2026
Context
A listener asked what a functional kill switch for AI would look like. Gibson argues no universal switch is possible because people already run capable AI locally and in personal clouds, so shutting down the commercial providers would soon be pointless.
Transcript
more, much more to lose.
Exactly. And be fined for.
…two years from now in 2028 with our next president. Given the incredible rate of progress that we've seen from AI so far, two years. My God, that's a lifetime. And by that point, I suspect that so much ultra-capable AI will be available and running locally and also in personal cloud infrastructure that cutting off the commercial providers will be seen by then as pointless because it's like the genie has not only escaped the lantern, the lanterns have been mass produced and everybody has their own genie. So why bother?
That's a good way to put it.
And suddenly, or finally, Asher says, hello, Steve. I've heard people saying they want more AI stuff on the show and some want less AI on the show. For me, it's more on the type of AI coverage. At this point, the weekly update on what amazing new trick the AI has learned is no longer interesting.…
All right. Let us take a moment here to pause and I will just remind you all about Club Twitch. At twit.tv slash club twit, which is where you can go to become a member of the club. When you do so, you gain access to some pretty awesome benefits. Every single one of our shows, ad-free, just the…
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