The Future is Arriving.
Is Tumbarumba Ready?
Presented by Charlie Garrison
Supported by Tumbarumba Business Chamber
Why We’re Here Tonight
But we have something most places don’t — we know each other.
High school students entering an unstable workforce
Industries already transforming in ways most people haven’t noticed
How we prepare together rather than worry alone
Understanding what’s actually happening — not just the hype
That’s why we’re here.
What Can AI Actually Do?
A consultation with an agronomist takes weeks to arrange — and costs hundreds of dollars.
available to anyone, instantly, for free.
The Timeline Has Collapsed
is arriving in 1–3 years
We MUST Solve Alignment First
not just what we tell them
One tool. Four lines of code. No specialist hardware.
3,500+ “decensored” models, downloaded 13 million times. 3
💬 Language is Imprecise
Imagine telling a workmate what you want — they do exactly what you said, but completely miss what you meant. Now give those instructions to a system that acts autonomously at scale, with no common sense to fill the gaps.
⚖️ Data Carries Our Biases
US courts used AI to advise sentencing: it rated Black defendants as higher risk, leading to longer sentences. Medical AI trained on Western patients routinely misdiagnoses patients in Africa. AI doesn’t add bias — it inherits and amplifies ours. 4
The brightest minds, working hardest —
and we still don’t have it solved.
That’s not the same as safe.
AI Is Already Building AI
The loop is already partially closed.
What happens when it does?
The Singularity: A One-Way Door
which builds the next faster, which is smarter still.
No trying again if we get it wrong.
If one lab stops, another won’t.
If one country pauses, another races ahead.
This is a coordination problem — not a failure of will. 1
Task horizon doubling every 4 months — and accelerating
The process has already started.
What I’m Hearing
Counsellor: “Asked a patient why they were no longer seeing me —
they had been using ChatGPT instead.”
Robotics + Large World Models =
AI doing Physical work.
Fewer industries to shift into. Fewer safety nets.
The disruption hits just as hard —
with less buffer.
It’s coming here too.
Our Children & High School Students
The careers we’re preparing them for may not exist by the time they graduate.
⚠️ Entering an Unstable World
The jobs most under threat are white-collar, professional roles — exactly what education has always pointed kids toward. Medicine, law, accounting, software. Not someday — now.
🏫 What Schools Aren’t Teaching
Curricula built for the 20th century. Critical thinking, adaptability, collaboration, and empathy matter more than ever. Most schools aren’t pivoting fast enough.
💬 What to Tell Your Kids
Be honest about uncertainty. Don’t pretend the path is clear. Help them build resilience, not just credentials. The most valuable thing you can give them is the ability to adapt.
The question is whether we’re prepared to have an honest conversation with them.
50/50: Utopia or Dystopia
🌟 Utopia
Cancer solved. Alzheimer’s solved.
A century of medical research compressed into a decade.
Abundance. Human flourishing.
⚠️ Dystopia
AI systems that behave in unpredictable ways.
Authoritarian surveillance.
Existential risk.
Experts once put it at 50/50. Hinton (2024): 10–20% chance of human extinction. 1
Almost nobody credible puts it at zero.
what we do right now.
Remember February 2020?
Stock market fine. Life normal.
“seems overblown” phase right now.
it’s about how society fundamentally works.
Immediate Human Risks
what are the human impacts?
💼 Job Displacement
Which roles? How fast? What skills remain valuable? White collar, creative, and technical work is already transforming — faster than most people realise.
🌾 Food Security
Supply chains optimised for efficiency, not resilience. Economic shock or infrastructure disruption could expose how fragile our food systems really are.
🧭 Purpose & Identity
When work defines who you are, what happens when the work disappears? Loss of structure, daily meaning, and self-worth.
🏛️ The Welfare Gap
Safety nets were built for temporary job loss, not structural displacement at scale. No ready infrastructure exists for what’s coming.
For deeper conversation
🧠 Mental Health at Scale · 🗳️ Democratic Fragility
Some of them are already here.
What Does a Good Future Look Like?
🌿 The personal picture
Outside. Building something. Helping someone. Creating. Contributing — not because you have to, but because it’s meaningful. Physical, relational, chosen.
🔬 The societal picture
Compressed decades of medical progress. Mental health care for everyone. Expertise available globally, not just in wealthy places. Human energy freed for what matters.
“The utopia outcome is genuinely desirable. Not as a fantasy — as a real possibility that is worth working toward.”
It’s worth working toward.
Institutions Are Paying Attention
The most senior voices in religion, science, and industry are all saying the same thing.
✝️ The Church
“Technology is never neutral — it takes on the characteristics of those who devise, finance and control it.”
The Church’s first encyclical dedicated to AI. Addressed to 1.4 billion Catholics. Calls for democratic oversight, warns against lethal AI in warfare, compares AI to the Industrial Revolution.
🧬 The Scientists
Altman · Amodei · Hassabis · Suleyman
“AI systems now outperform PhD-level virologists… Knowledge barriers which have historically prevented bad actors from obtaining biological weapons will meaningfully erode.”
🔍 The Insiders
“Every frontier AI lab operates inside incentives that can conflict with doing the right thing.”
— Christopher Olah, Anthropic safety researcher. The people building these systems are raising the alarm from the inside.
are all saying the same thing —
it’s time to listen.
The Bigger Picture
Other forces are shaping our future at the same time.
⚡ Critical Infrastructure at Risk
AI can now find vulnerabilities in power grids, water systems, and supply chains in minutes. Attacks that once required state-backed actors, months of work, and millions of dollars are becoming accessible to anyone. Electricity, water, logistics — the systems we take for granted are newly exposed.
🌍 Geopolitical Instability
The US-Israel war on Iran — still ongoing — has put the Strait of Hormuz at risk. When distant conflicts disrupt global supply chains, the price at the Tumbarumba bowser is one of the first places it shows up. Fuel costs hit rural communities harder than anywhere: longer distances, no public transport, farming operations that run on diesel.
🌡️ Climate Change
Still unfolding in parallel. AI may accelerate solutions — or accelerate energy consumption. Two major disruption timelines are converging.
🦠 Pandemic Preparedness
COVID exposed how fragile our systems are. AI-accelerated biology cuts both ways: faster vaccines and faster bioweapons. The next pandemic may arrive in a more disrupted world.
🔓 AI Guardrail Removal 1
Open-source AI models can have safety guardrails stripped in minutes using freely available tools. Over 3,500 “decensored” models downloaded 13 million times. Proprietary systems remain more secure — for now.
💸 The AI Investment Bubble
Massive capital flowing into AI on the promise of future returns. A hard correction could slow innovation and destabilise job markets simultaneously.
For deeper conversation
☢️ Nuclear Proliferation · 📱 AI-Enabled Disinformation · ⚖️ Economic Inequality · ⚡ Energy Security · 🧬 Bioweapons Acceleration
Everything is accelerating at once.
Why Community Is the Answer
Collective sense-making is how we actually prepare.
Awareness
Understand what’s actually happening. Separate hype from reality.
Conversation
Talk to people. Challenge ideas. Share perspectives. Build collective understanding.
Action
Not panic. Not paralysis. Informed, grounded, community-supported action.
Maslow’s hierarchy as a planning framework:
In disruption, we return to fundamentals — physiological needs, safety, belonging. Community is how we secure all three: food networks, mutual support, shared knowledge.
And our young people belong here too. High school students need community conversations, not just school curricula. They need to hear adults taking this seriously.
and why we need to keep meeting.
What Can We Do?
🧠 Awareness
Stay informed. Understand what’s actually happening versus the hype. Conversations like this one are where it starts. And be critical of your sources — AI is already being used to generate and amplify disinformation at scale. Multiple channels, trusted local voices.
💬 Find Your Community
You don’t have to figure this out alone. Find or start a local group. Collective sense-making is more powerful than individual worry. Lions, Rotary, RFS, and local sporting clubs already exist — they just need this conversation added to them.
🔧 Know Your Skills
Which of your skills are AI-resistant? Which are AI-complementary? Understanding your own value helps you adapt rather than react.
🌿 Food Preparedness
Community gardens, local suppliers, growing your own. Resilience through local relationships — not stockpiling.
💰 Financial Resilience
Reduce debt. Build a buffer. Economic disruption amplifies existing vulnerability — and it arrives faster than most people expect. Keep cash on hand — EFTPOS goes down when infrastructure does. Know how to transact without it.
📢 Civic Engagement
Talk to your representatives. Attend local meetings. Governments need to hear from people who are paying attention — not just lobbyists.
Stay connected
futuretogether.community
Starting tonight.
Stay Connected
Find resources, register for upcoming events,
and bring a friend to the next one.
futuretogether.community/events/tumbarumba
Created with Beyond Better
Back to Basics
Maslow’s hierarchy reminds us:
fundamental needs come first
- Physiological: food, water, shelter
- Safety: security, stability
- Belonging: community, connection
- Esteem: achievement, respect
- Self-actualization: purpose, growth
when everything else is shifting.
When Systems Go Down
it requires a few things already in place before you need them.
📻 AM/FM Radio
Emergency broadcasts and local news still work when the internet doesn’t. A battery-powered or hand-crank radio costs $30 and works in a blackout.
📡 UHF Radio
Local communication without any infrastructure. Farmers already use them. In a major disruption, they’re how neighbours coordinate when mobile networks are down.
💵 Cash & Barter
EFTPOS fails when power or network goes down. Keep enough cash to cover a week of essentials. Know which local businesses will trade on account or goodwill.
📄 Hard Copies
Important documents, insurance, medical records, key contacts, and a local community directory — printed. When cloud services are unavailable, paper still works.
🔋 Power Banks & Batteries
A charged power bank and spare batteries extend how long your devices work during an outage. In extended disruptions, knowing how to charge offline (solar, car) matters.
🤝 Know Your Neighbours
During any major disruption, the people closest to you physically are best placed to help. A community directory, a shared WhatsApp group, or simply knowing who lives nearby — it all counts.
Based on the Red Cross All Hazards preparedness framework — EmergencyRedi: Get in the Know, Get Connected, Get Organised, Get Packing. Contact Peter Makryllos or your local Red Cross for community preparedness workshops.
It’s about not being caught completely flat-footed.