When the alarm goes off in your building... you evacuate. Doesn't matter if it's a test or not.
this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2026
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Exactly. It's literally the point of a test.
It's literally the point of a fire drill.
A scheduled test of the equipment, with the alarms going off randomly all day as the tester gets to them, doesn't require you to evacuate.
Such a test is always supposed to be preceded by ample warning notifications, so people will be extra careful not to set real fires while the building is vulnerable.
And also is supposed to be monitored with people actually watching for fires so they can manually evacuate people if a fire does break out during the test. (Requirements may vary by jurisdiction of course)
Read the post, the follow up explains she was already outside at the designated meeting point per policy and just making a Slack thread to talk about it.
Glad to see this is a top comment.
Well that sounds inconvenient.
I came here to say that only an idiot would ask an AI to explain a fire alarm, but then I actually read the post and holy shit. It was an AI agent responding on slack. So yea, this is serious.
I mean, they're still an idiot. When the fire alarm goes off you get the hell out of the building, not start a group chat on Slack.
OOP clarified that they did leave the building first.
That's assuming too much, though. One can post on Slack from their phone outside of the building. This is all we know:
A colleague wrote to a Slack channel 'Fire alarm in the office building', to start a thread if somebody knows any details.
Regardless, moon, not finger.
AI offering unsolicited advice on emergency situations is a fresh, new level of hell.
I didn't realize until I read your comment that the AI was integrated into Slack and told this person that they didn't need to evacuate without them specifically asking the AI for advice.
On the other hand, this does show that anything typed into that slack channel is treated like a query. Which is also terrifyingly stupid.
One also has to wonder, did they message on their phone from a safe location? Or did they hear alarm bells and their first instinct was to get on their computer and start typing?
I don't know why people are assuming she didn't just do the thing anyone does in these situations, evacuating and then striking up conversation about it
The original poster confirmed in the replies that they sent the message after evacuating properly.
Good! That's the sensible thing.
My hope is they did this after they evacuated. But honestly could go either way.
Subject: Fire. Dear Sir/Madam, I am writing to inform you of a fire that has broken out on the premises of 123 Cavendon Road... no, that's too formal. Fire - exclamation mark - fire - exclamation mark - help me - exclamation mark. 123 Cavendon Road. Looking forward to hearing from you. Yours truly, Maurice Moss.
It's going to give you the "most likely" answer, stated with utter confidence. Alarm tests happen more often than real alarms.
But then ... shouldn't it be saying "whether or not this is a test, you should follow your building's emergency evacuation procedures immediately"?
Someday, AI will kill us.
It won't. The lack of common sense will, and in this case, starting a group chat about the fire while the alarm is ringing.
According to the original poster, they clarified the slack chat was started after the person had evacuated the building, and the AI was configured to glean prompts from the chats and respond automatically if it deemed it could help.
We should just treat AI like I treat Jim Cramer. Do exactly the opposite of what it says.
who is he?
He's a guy with a show about stock/investing advice, widely reported as an expert in his field, with a less than 50% success rate.
OP is literally, technically correct that doing the opposite is a better strategy than actually following his advice.
doing the opposite is a better strategy than actually following his advice
๐
The absolute best stock adviser on tv, so long as you follow 13igtyme's advice lol
p.s. NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE
I think you misunderstood. I do the opposite of Jim Cramer. If he says buy, I sell. If he says sell, I buy.
No u. Hehe I said to follow your advice not cramers
edit: took me til this morning with blurry eyes to see your name bigtyme properly
Never use AI for advice...
They didn't. It was unsolicited.
hmm, let's correct: never trust AI for advice