Will a solar storm at least as powerful as the Carrington Event hit Earth before superintelligence is created?

Question

The half-baked idea occurred to me the other day that a catastrophic geomagnetic storm that ruins all our electronics might be the closest thing we could get to an Eliezer Yudkowsky style 'pivotal act' to prevent AI doom comparable to his example of 'burn all CPUs'.

For brief context, the Carrington Event geomagnetic storm hit Earth in the 1800s, and a similar sized storm narrowly missed Earth in 2012.

By 'at least as powerful as', I mean in terms of multiple physical properties of the storm (speed, mass, magnetic field warping etc).

Manifold Markets · Answer

Probably not — Manifold Markets prediction market estimates a 26% chance (22 traders, as of Sep 21, 2026).