Protecting your family through a disruptive transition
This chapter assumes the realistic scenario — fast economic and informational disruption — not a Hollywood takeover. The same discipline that protects a household from any severe, low-probability shock applies here, tuned to AI-specific failure modes.
Digital & identity hardening
- Hardware security keys (FIDO2) on every account that supports them — not SMS two-factor, which AI-assisted social engineering defeats cheaply at scale.
- A documented family "verification phrase" for any request — call, video, email — asking for money, credentials, or urgent action. Deepfake voice and video cloning make "it sounded like them" worthless as verification.
- Offline, encrypted backups of identity documents, medical records, and financial account details — not cloud-only. Assume periods where you cannot trust or reach a given digital service.
- Reduced single-vendor dependency: don't let one company's cloud, one authentication provider, and one communications app be the only path to your money, your documents, and your family.
Financial resilience
Maintain 3–6 months of expenses in immediately liquid form outside the equities most directly exposed to AI-driven labor displacement in your own household's income sources. Diversify across asset classes with different correlation to an AI-capex or AI-labor shock: broad index exposure, hard assets, and cash equivalents rather than concentration in employer stock or a single sector.
If your household income is concentrated in a single AI-exposed profession, treat that as a documented risk, not a hypothetical — build the retraining fund and the alternate income plan before you need them, not after a layoff notice.
Household continuity checklist
- Physical maps and printed contact lists for your region — do not rely solely on a phone for navigation or communication during any period of network or service disruption.
- A family communication plan with an out-of-area contact and a predetermined check-in cadence if normal channels are degraded.
- Basic supply reserves per Chapter 06 — this is continuity planning, not a bunker.
- A designated family decision-maker for time-sensitive calls if primary contacts are unreachable.