alt Hacker News> What's the most dangerous thing that's happened with an LLM so far?
I don't know, maybe a mass shooting?
https://www.npr.org/2026/09/02/nx-s1-5953021/openai-tumbler-...
Oh, and let's just forget the uncountable early deaths from the environmental disaster of the Datacenter buildout. It's not as sexy and doesn't make headlines, so those deaths don't really count or matter do they?
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I did know about the mass shooting but failed to mention it here. I’d put it in the “unlikely to be a widespread problem” category. If we’re in the “one AI driven mass shooting every four years” world for example it’s fair to call it a rare issue.
The environmental impact seems either very overblown (e.g., water usage just isn’t that high) and the part that isn’t overblown is totally abatable (e.g., noise and emissions from gas generators). Nuclear or solar/renewables with batteries wouldn’t pollute.
I’ve seen no estimates of the additional deaths due to extra emissions specifically from power generation for AI purposes. If you have some, share them.
I’m willing to bet that they are a small rounding error against preventable deaths due to emissions from transport and non-AI-related power generation (which is an important and urgent issue worth spending a lot on, to be clear!). I’m happy to update that belief given evidence.
Mass shootings are sensational but on the scale of civilizational risk they don’t even compare to something like climate change.