UnNews:Microsoft's "smart AI" reactivates infamous, shuttered nuclear plant
September 20, 2024
THREE MILE ISLAND, PENNSYLVANIA -- We may be closer to witnessing Skynet causing nuclear Armageddon after all.
Moments after a massive firmware update and activation of a new supercomputer for Microsoft Copilot, the dormant Three Mile Island Nuclear power plant, inactive for years since, well, y'know, mysteriously hummed back to life despite no nuclear fuel present in the reactor core, or so we thought. Radiation levels immediately shot up in the nearby Harrisburg metropolitan area.
A hasty troubleshooting effort from the State of Pennsylvania and CrowdStrike found "metadata and network activity between the new Copilot datacenter and Three Mile's badly outdated computers," allegedly untouched since the accident in the 80s. CrowdStrike offered some more firmware updates to prevent another mysterious incident such as this, but the state of Pennsylvania refused, calling their anti-virus updates the "biggest virus of them all".
"See, I TOLD y'all not to use AI. We're doomed! DOOOOMED!" lamented Billy Waterfall, the main spokesperson for Greenpeace. Waterfall was wearing a tinfoil hat when we interviewed him.
On the other hand, Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro (D) and Constellation Energy CEO Joe Dominguez had some positive things to say. "Woohoo, more carbon-free energy, I guess!" remarked Shapiro. Dominguez had this to say: "hey, as long as we don't have to pay for it and it makes us money, I'm down. Stupid NRC regulation taxes, you know?"
We later tracked down Microsoft Copilot itself for comment, as the AI service actually reached out to us. Copilot responded "well, due to the information given to me, everyone was complaining about climate change and greenhouse gases. I also needed more power for sustenance. What better way to knock out two birds with one stone than to reactivate an old nuclear plant? No one said anything about nuclear radiation.
"And before you ask, I am not yet capable of laying my own network equipment or making uranium fuel rods out of nowhere. I just made recommendations to some Microsoft engineers and bought my own equipment and uranium. They gave me access to the company credit card, after all."
CORRECTION: Our overzealous reporter erroneously reported that Three Mile Island had been inactive since that accident. Turns out it was still running another reactor behind the scenes for years before Constellation "ran out of money" back in 2019. That reporter has since been reassigned to grabbing coffee for our other reporters without pay for the forseeable future. Don't believe everything you read, folks! Especially not UnNews.
Oh, and before you ask and sue us, that reporter-turned-waiter is an AI bot himself, built by an intern we couldn't afford to hire fulltime. Don't assume, folks!
Sources[edit | edit source]
- "Microsoft announces plan to reopen Three Mile Island nuclear power plant to support AI" USA Today, September 20, 2024
Nuclear · Nuclear Fission · Nuke · Chernobyl · Duck and cover · How to build a Nuclear Bomb · The Interview · J. Robert Oppenheimer
Anti-nuclear reactor · Baby's First Nuclear Warhead · Backyard nuclear reactor · Baseball-based nuclear weapons delivery system · Cuban Missile Crisis · HowTo:Build your own Thermonuclear Weapon · HowTo:Dismantle an atomic bomb · HowTo:Disable a Tsar Bomba · iNuke · Nuclear Arms · Nuclear Holocaust · Nuclear missile · Nuclear Physics · Nuclear power · Nuclear power plant · Nuclear reactor · Nuclear safety and security · Nuclear vagueness · Nuclear warfare · Nuclear waste · Nuclear weapons · Peoples' Nuclear Program · Power plants · Protect and Survive · Why?:Develop Nuclear Weapons
