December 1st, 2024 | RYAN TYLER

More Babies Won't Save Civilization, Artificial Intelligence Will 

Technology, not fertility, will solve the impending productivity apocalypse.

The ideal world for my children isn't one with more people, it's one with far fewer people. Ideally, a world with a declining population will serve future generations better than higher birthrates. Unlike past civilizations, all of which collapsed for various different reasons, we are in a unique situation. The advent of artificial intelligence has the potential to solve any and all the productivity and labour issues that would otherwise doom us. In fact, the combination of robotics and AI has the potential to free future generations from labour entirely.

If my kids never have kids, that would be fine by me. In fact, as they get older, I might subtly encourage them to selfishly pursue their own dreams and ambitions. As they get older, I will have to instill new ideas that break the current status quo. The old ideas about getting a normal job will be out the window in a decade. Unlike past technological revolutions, the AI revolution will steamroll us if we don't prepare.

Aside from jobs that require skilled labour, like plumbing and framing, the first jobs to go will be customer service. Call centres should be fully automated with AI and voice recognition by 2035, or 2040 at the latest. Mortgage and insurance brokers should be displaced and made obsolete shortly thereafter—along with retail associates, fast food workers, accountants, tax agents, truck drivers, all types of delivery drivers, and IT people. By 2050, most entry level jobs and low-skill work will be fully automated. Most office work will be fully automated before then.

In the next couple of decades, AI and robotics will transform who we are as a species.

If we don't plan how to educate our children now, they will get left in the dust. Working drive-thru at a fast food joint for “experience” and more financial independence probably won't be an option in ten years. Sending your kids to a fancy university for an expensive degree in political science and gender studies will ensure their failure. As parents, we will need to figure out where to place our children and how to set them up for success in a very different world.

Artificial intelligence will figure most things out by 2050, like how the universe works and how to cure cancer. It will map out the human genome and tell us where to make edits for longevity and how to delete hereditary diseases. It will create 3D prints of limbs, prosthetics, robots, auto parts, medical equipment—you name it. Artificial intelligence will do what scientists and doctors have been tasked with doing since the dawn of time, but much faster.

At some point, AI and self-fixing robots will grow our food, manufacture our goods, build our homes, transport us, and assemble themselves.

Of course, all of this could go down a much darker path—but I'm optimistic. The fear-mongering about AI destroying humanity doesn't scare me. If you think about it, can it really get much worse than where we are headed at the moment? Without the promise of AI, we would be headed into a future of even more mass migration, cultural destruction, diminished productivity, and eventual collapse.

If we don't kill ourselves in a nuclear holocaust before AI advances to where it needs to be, we won't be worse off than we would be without it.

Right Now

At the moment, the stuff we buy in stores has a higher price and a lower quality. There have been more product and food recalls in the past few years than I ever remember. Almost weekly, something we bought has been recalled due to human error. Appliances last less than a few years before needing repairs, food is less safe, politicians are more corrupt, and our quality of life seems to be deteriorating at the fastest pace ever seen. Our latest vaccine didn't even work.

We are living in a kakistocracy.

The truth is, people have become more incompetent. All the mass immigration and temporary labourers being used to fill gaps in productivity haven't helped. Canada, as well as other developed countries, are in the midst of a productivity crisis. People, no matter where they are from, are not as competent and capable as they used to be. We can debate the causes, but the proof is in the pudding. We can't deny the absolute decline in quality we are experiencing within every facet of our lives.

Artificial intelligence couldn't have arrived at a better time.

Without AI, I can't begin to imagine the horrors that would await us. Had it not been for the few smart people who invented artificial intelligence, we would be looking at a future of guaranteed labour shortages, starvation, disease, compounded human error, and suffering. As luck would have it, catastrophic birthrates among the most productive populations are no longer an existential threat. The collapse of productivity and production is no longer inevitable.

In the absence of competent human labour, we have a solution.

Tomorrow

There will be major challenges as we transition into a labour-less society. This transition scares the detractors and naysayers who oppose AI. However, they'll need to get over it. Our future without AI would be far worse.

Every developed country has tried to solve their birthrates. So far, all of them have failed. The UK has offered some of the best maternity benefits in the world, only to see zero positive results. Japan has done much of the same, even going as far as funding dating apps to connect lonely men to women. Worse yet, as every measure fails in the developed world, developing countries are now seeing their birthrates decline in unison with their progress and development.

It's almost like fate has a plan for humanity. As we become more prosperous and educated, we have fewer babies. This same pattern has been repeating in the modern world, just as it has in history. As it peaked, even the Roman Empire began to see declining birthrates as it prospered and its population became wealthier. Like us, the Romans tried to address the problem, but failed.

With progress comes lower birthrates. It's a feature that appears built into the human race. It's almost like we are being forced to accept a future without labour, or to continue repeating the civilizational cycle of collapsing and rebuilding. If we reject AI, we would be choosing an inevitable collapse in favour of rebuilding a new civilization and restarting the usual cycle.

Unlike past civilizations, we have a unique opportunity to end an infinite cycle of destruction and rebirth.

We have a chance to choose a future of real freedom. Freedom from the slog of labour and slavery. We have an opportunity to become free travellers who no longer have to use their energy to earn a living, but rather to feed their curiosity and consciousness. No longer burdened and enslaved by nature's repetitive cycle of acquiring and expending energy for the sake of acquiring and expending more energy, humanity might finally find a real purpose.

By boarding fully autonomous and automated solar-powered planes, we could visit the catacombs underneath Paris for a fraction of what it costs today. Our luggage could be packed for us and the food along the way grown, printed, or cooked for us. Our stocks could be traded for us, our money invested into corporations that no longer pay for labour, but return a portion of their profits to shareholders. The little money that we may actually need could be effortlessly generated by an intelligence we can't even match. Our diseases and ailments diagnosed and cured immediately, on the spot. New skills and languages downloaded into our brains. Our daily chores, completed on time and without error by fully replicating robots with generative learning abilities.

Not a single ounce of human labour in a world with only a fraction of its current population.

It all sounds idealistic and utopian, but more possible than ever. A smaller world with fewer grievances is still far away, but the stepping stones have been put in place. Even if it is unattainable for our generation, isn't it something we should want for our children? Isn't it something we should be striving to attain for them?

Birthrates are going down. As long as we have prosperity, they won't ever go up again. That is the inevitable truth. If birthrates continue to decline, human labour will become more scarce and our quality of life will eventually collapse. Without a saving grace, collapse remains in our future—no matter what. For this reason, we should be embracing AI's potential to create that idealistic, utopian world for our kids.

Only after we embrace it can we start building the foundational laws and regulations that will prevent the horrors brought about by sentient robots in science fiction movies.