I asked a disaster survival psychologist if AI usage should be the same level of 'emergency' as Pompeii but instead she's worried about a technology catastrophe that I didn't even consider

Date:
Thu, 23 Jul 2026 18:00:00 +0000

Description:
It's not every day you get to talk to a survival psychologist in a hit National Geographic documentary about your technology fears but how worried should we be by the rise of AI?

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter My favorite interviews over the course of my career have involve people I'd never normally get the chance to speak to in everyday life.

So far this year that's involved two former FBI agents, but Dr. Sarita Robinson who you can see in Pompeii: Out of Time , out now on Disney+ and Hulu might just take the cake. Known as "Dr. Survival," her work specialises in figuring out why some people are more likely to survive disasters than others. This makes her a compelling expert for the three-part docuseries, which explores the events leading up to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79AD, which destroyed the nearby Roman city of Pompeii, and features Tom Hiddleston as presenter. Latest Videos From Watch full video here:

But it's not her take on the past that I'm actually as interested in... it's her take on the disasters of the future. As a TechRadar writer, I can't pass up an opportunity to talk to Robinson about the dangers of the rise of AI usage across the globe.

While some of us happily wile away the hours asking ChatGPT to generate
images of us as hot dogs, others are getting concerned about increasingly
awry security reports, such as Open AI models breaching rival company,
Hugging Face . You may like The ELIZA effect completely changed how I think about chatbots The more famous people tell me to use AI, the less I want to People are building chatbot versions of their ex-partners, and I'm worried

Add in potential climate change risk, and I think that AI is more than a viable candidate for the sort of survival emergencies that Robinson researches. But surprisingly, AI isn't what she's most worried about. 'We theoretically have a risk from AI' Pompeii: Out of Time with Tom Hiddleston | Official Trailer | National Geographic - YouTube Watch On First, I begin by asking Robinson exactly how she defines a survival emergency. Does it have to be a natural occurrence, like the Mount Vesuvius eruption near Pompeii? Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.

"Absolutely not," she replies. "For me, when I'm looking at emergencies, it's anything where your life is at risk. That can be as simple as you walking across a road and a car coming, small scale emergencies that are just enough that you have to respond, or it can be huge emergencies. The last one that I did quite a lot of research on, as you might expect, is the pandemic. The
next one will be climate change, the era of global boiling."

"Medium scale would be an earthquake in a region, a terror attack so they
can be human made disasters... they don't have to be just natural disasters."

So far, so good. When it comes to categorizing AI within Robinson's research boundaries, is this kind of technological disaster something she's ever considered? What to read next Anthropic's bizarre call for everyone to slow down on AI is a pipe dream here's why that will never happen Meta AI's
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"I think I've watched enough science fiction movies to know that we theoretically have a risk from AI," she tells me. "Exactly what that risk would be or how it would look is very difficult to predict at this moment.
But yes, absolutely, I would definitely add it onto my list of things that
can go wrong... my list is quite extensive." Today's best Hulu deals Get
first month free Hulu - Monthly (with Ads) $7.99 $9.99 /mth View at Hulu Get First Month Free Hulu (No Ads) $18.99 /mth View at Hulu 'I would be far more worried about a solar pulse' (Image credit: Disney+/Hulu/National Geographic) "To be fair, I think the thing I worry about more on the tech front is something like a solar pulse that then knocks out a whole load of
technology," Robinson adds. "I can't imagine my life without a mobile phone,
a computer... it would be very odd to go into an age of no internet."

It's at this point of the interview where I stop feeling bad for adding a disaster scenario to Robinson's list, as she's certainly just added one to mine. Before this point, I'd never even heard of a solar pulse, which can
best be described as a sudden burst of energy from the sun. According to the University of Minnesota , they can trigger "explosive releases of radiation and magnetized plasma ripple through space, occasionally triggering geomagnetic storms on Earth and producing auroras."

Fantastic, another reason to have anxiety in 2026. But what is Robinson's advice for not feeling so anxious about... well, general impending doom?

"Be prepared: active coping, doing something about it, keeping it in perspective, but making sure that you have the resources if something goes wrong," she responds. "I don't mean building a nuclear bunker in your back garden. For example, when the pandemic hit back in 2020, I had a 'pandemic kit' under my sink. I felt like I had a little bit more control in that moment."

"I did some research on the pandemic and what it did show was that those people who'd made some preparations prior to the lockdown were doing much better in terms of mental health, stress, anxiety and depression."

Can we make a solar pulse or anti-AI kit for under our sinks? Most likely
not. But that doesn't mean that Robinson's advice should be discarded
control also means vigilance, so keeping a mix of online and offline
resources in day-to-day life could be a great way of achieving this. Today's best Disney+ Bundle deals Disney+, Hulu Bundle $12.99 /mth View at Disney+ Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+ Bundle - Basic $19.99 /mth View at Disney+ Disney+,
Hulu, ESPN+ Bundle - Premium $29.99 /mth View at Disney+ Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds.



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/streaming/disney-plus/pompeii-out-of-time-survival-p sychologist-ai


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