Civilization isn’t going to collapse. At least, not in the way we’ve always envisioned. There won’t be a flaming asteroid that crashes into Manhattan like in the movies. Nothing is ever as dramatic as Hollywood suggests.
But I think we can agree that something is afoot. The signs are everywhere. Self-checkout kiosks are replacing cashiers. Artificial Intelligence rejects job applicants before a human ever sees a résumé. Depressed people form emotional attachments to chatbots because there aren’t enough therapists. Driverless cars are taking over our roads. At the same time these things are gaining traction, birth rates are crashing around the world, or at least everywhere that has indoor toilets. The average fertility rate in China, Ukraine and Thailand is around 1.0 child(ren) per woman. That’s less than the replacement rate. Doing simple math, here’s how this could play out. Over 30 years, 100 women have 50 children. Over the next 30 years those 50 children will have 25 children. Over the next 30 years, those 25 children will have 12 children. Using my math, within 100 years, China’s population of 1.4B humans drops to around 175M humans.
Maybe these two trends (technology and birth rates) are unrelated. But, for most of human history, civilizations have increased their populations. More workers. More families. More children. More labor to drive the economy. But modern societies increasingly view more human beings as expensive, unpredictable, emotional, slow, and difficult to control or manage. Now, for the first time, many societies appear to be making a different calculation: what if we stopped relying on humans and started relying on Artificial Intelligence (AI)? Tesla is building 1,000,000 AI powered robots this year as they ramp to much higher production levels in 2027. Humanoid robots don’t call in sick. They don’t get hurt. They don’t get pregnant. They don’t require pensions or healthcare. They don’t unionize or sue their employer. They don’t have mental breakdowns in the parking lot of a Target because life has become spiritually exhausting.
Yes, Artificial Intelligence is coming—and fast. We already use Waze because we’d rather not get lost. We use UberEats for food delivery, because driving to pick up takeout food is a hassle. We use OpenTable to make a dinner reservation because speaking to a human is annoying. So, tell me again how you’re not ready to give up control? Nobody forced you to use any of this stuff. That’s the point. The systems don’t conquer us through violence. They conquer us through convenience. They shape us through incentives. See, I think it’s more likely that we gradually lose control. Sorta like the way we adopted electricity or the internet. Can you imagine living without electricity or the internet?
Once the robots start cooking your dinner, walking your dog and vacuuming your house, it’s easy to see how quickly we will adapt. Imagine your driverless car takes your robot to the grocery store. The robot shops for groceries, pays for them and stops to pick up a prescription on the way home. Sound crazy? It’s coming faster than you think.
And here is where falling birth rates interact with technology. The decline in birth rates means fewer workers. Labor costs explode. Healthcare systems strain. Economic growth stalls. Entire towns (and colleges) may cease to exist. Governments will panic because modern economies are built on constant expansion. So robotic proliferation becomes not just attractive but necessary. Once we go there, there is no going back. And by the time we notice, the surrender will be complete. We’ll already be organizing our economy and lives around them. There won’t be a flaming asteroid that crashes into Manhattan like the movies. Because nothing is ever as dramatic as Hollywood suggests.
