I was riding my bike down a side street the other day and I passed several cars and campers that were parked along the curb. They were pretty beat up and their residents had all kinds of stuff around them — like tires and coolers and grocery carts and lawn chairs. It got me thinking - what would it be like to be in that world? No running water, no air conditioning, no refrigerator or shower — and what if the power ever went out for the rest of us? Everyone has read about it (Texas 2023), even if we don’t admit it out loud: the power grid in the United States — the vast, humming web that feeds our homes, businesses, hospitals, and computer screens, is antiquated. It is decades past its prime - not just old in years, but also in design and functionality. It was built for a different world; a 1960’s world where energy flowed in one direction, demand rose slowly, weather was mostly predictable. That world is pretty much gone. What remains is a structure held together, metaphorically speaking, by duct tape and chicken wire. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers 2025 Report Card, our energy infrastructure earns a D+ grade. Equipment that should have retired in the 1990s still limping along today. Transmission lines wilt with increasing demand. Substations built before the Internet now struggle to serve cloud servers that train artificial intelligence, which sucks up energy like a Dyson. The transformers that convert power between usable voltages are in such short supply that a single regional failure could cascade into outages for weeks. We are living inside a system that was never meant to bear this much weight. We tell ourselves that resilience is a matter of redundancy. That backup generators, batteries, and clever grids will cover the gap. Yes, those may help, but a deeper resilience might lie not in our systems. It may lie in ourselves and in learning from those who already live in anticipation of the collapse.
There are the Van-Lifers, car-dwellers and, nomads with solar panels strapped to their roofs and water filters clipped to their belts. Some are escaping rent. Some are seeking freedom. Some are just tired of being plugged in. But all of them are learning a skill most of us forgot -- how to live lightly, how to live prepared. I am not promoting the romanticized “Van Life” tribe so often featured in influencer reels: sunset-lit camper conversions, ceramic mugs of French-press coffee, and minimalist aesthetics framed against pine forests. That world exists, yes, but it is buffered by choice, privilege, and financial access to our modern infrastructure. What I am referring to here is a different stratum of mobile existence: those living out of necessity, not desire. Homeless people, nomads in aging campers and pickup trucks, vehicles packed, not with curated essentials, but with scavenged gear, bags of clothing, bicycle parts, tools, and found materials -- items traded or hoarded not for style, but simply survival. These are people moving through the interstitial spaces of our cities and towns, on alert to risks and opportunities, often invisibly maintaining networks of barter and mutual aid. In the event of grid collapse or infrastructural disintegration, they would not merely bystanders to the fall, they may be the first able to adapt, navigate, and endure it. They might fall into a category that linguists and sociologists describe as impoverished survivalists, i.e., people whose survivalist mindset is born from scarcity, not prepper ideology. These hardened individuals learn to “cache supplies, but carry what’s needed” and “dress in layers”, repurposing everything from newspapers to plastic bags for warmth and shelter. They traverse cities with shoes worn thin, holding “anything helps” signs, panhandling and carrying barterable items, not for fashion, but for food or a night in a shelter. In imagining how society might unravel during a grid collapse, it struck me that these may be the first strategic responders -- not emergency crews, not influencers, but those who already live off-grid, navigating its complexities every day. Their resilience is not theoretical. It is living, breathing, and crushingly immediate. It is woven into the cadence of their survival. They may be nearly invisible to most of us, but we should recognize that they already exist in a post-grid rehearsal — and we would be wise to pay attention. They are true urban survivalists, and in the event of a grid-down scenario, they may not be the ones scrambling — they may be the ones watching from the sidelines, relatively unfazed.
When and if the grid goes down, either by cataclysm or by decomposition, it won’t just be the power that fails. It will be all the systems we have presumed were stable: the ones that refrigerate our food, deliver our medicine, communicate our emergencies, and warm our homes. This is the illusion of the always-on, always-there future. Here is where artificial intelligence may be of some help; not as a redeemer descending from the clouds, but as a silent observer already embedded in many of these systems. Today’s AI already models energy usage down to the neighborhood level. It predicts surges, balances loads, even forecasts equipment failures. It is the unseen analyst behind smart thermostats and grid-aware appliances. But this is only the beginning. If we imagine a future where AI isn’t just reactive but predictive - deeply recursive in its learning, adaptive in real time - it could become the nervous system for a new kind of grid. One that doesn’t just deliver power, but knows when, where, and why to distribute it most efficiently. One that learns from blackout patterns, microgrid dynamics, and user behavior. One that teaches us how to be more efficient by being observant on our behalf. Even more audaciously, convergent AI could also model social and infrastructural weak points before disaster strikes. Using satellite data, traffic sensors, weather feeds, and economic signals, it could highlight not just where the wires are fraying, but where society is fraying too. It could prioritize energy to hospitals before a storm hits, pre-stage battery shipments to underserved regions, or even advise on population shifts due to climate-induced volatility. Still, all these benefits depend on one thing: us letting it. Letting AI see. Letting it advise. Letting it act in places we up-to-this-point controlled manually. That requires trust, which is an elusive commodity in a world where centralized authority already feels like the last thing we need.
So maybe the real opportunity is not just in building a smarter grid, but in building a wiser culture. One that doesn’t wait for collapse to become resilient. One that respects the lessons of those already living without the plug. One that sees survivalism not as paranoia, but as preparation. If AI can forecast grid failures, then humans must forecast value failures: places where our priorities eroded, where we optimized for convenience instead of endurance. The solution isn’t just solar panels and storage batteries. It’s psychological readiness. It’s cultural rewiring. We can take a page from the urban survivalist ethos, not to escape society, but to mitigate our dependencies. Learn to cook without power. Filter water without plumbing. Connect with neighbors, face-to-face. The very habits we have forgotten because of the luxury of endless electricity, may be the ones that ultimately serve us.
The hope, of course, is that the same AI that helps manage our grids might also help rebuild them in more decentralized, resilient ways. With peer-to-peer energy sharing, modular networks, and AI-curated usage patterns, we could distribute the risk rather than concentrate it. If designed wisely, these systems wouldn’t just prevent collapse, they would redefine normal. Which leaves us here: between the roadside drifters and the data scientists. Between analog resilience and digital foresight. Between failure and the opportunity it opens. Our grid is failing. Slowly, but visibly. What we do with that awareness is the real test. Do we wait and react, or do we imagine and prepare? The real survivors of tomorrow will not be the ones who worry in the darkness, but those who walk into uncertainty with eyes open, skills intact, and maybe a little help from an AI that doesn’t go to sleep when the power goes out…
For further reading, please see the following links:
American Society of Civil Engineers – Infrastructure Report Card
The ASCE emphasizes that much of the U.S. power grid was built in the mid-20th century and is dangerously overdue for replacement. Aging infrastructure, extreme weather, and delayed modernization contribute to a high risk of widespread failure.U.S. Department of Energy – Grid Modernization and Resilience
The DOE outlines strategies for transforming the electric grid into a more resilient, secure, and flexible system. It confirms existing weaknesses and highlights the role of AI and machine learning in predicting outages and optimizing load balance.National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) – “Artificial Intelligence for the Grid”
NREL documents how AI is already being used to predict component failures, enhance distributed energy resource management, and accelerate grid responsiveness in emergency conditions.World Economic Forum – “AI and machine learning will be critical for smart grids” (2023)
This article emphasizes the global momentum behind integrating AI with smart grids to boost resilience, reduce emissions, and ensure stable delivery during disasters or cyberattacks.