Civilization isn’t going to collapse. At least not in the way we’ve always envisioned. Aliens aren’t going to land on the town square in Marietta, Georgia and take over the planet. Nothing is ever as dramatic as Hollywood suggests.
But, I think we can agree that something strange is going on. Modern societies are replacing humans with technology. Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems screen job applicants. Driverless cars are taking over the roads. Self-checkout kiosks are replacing cashiers. Fortunately the UPS guy is still human.
I know you are thinking “these are just modern advancements, Tom.” You are correct. But the ramifications of these modern advancements have far reaching implications.
Modern societies increasingly view human beings the same way corporations view staffing costs: expensive, unpredictable, emotional, slow, and difficult to control or manage.
We’re building an economy designed to function with fewer people instead of more. That's a profound shift.
At the same time, birth rates are crashing everywhere that has indoor toilets. The average fertility rate in China, Ukraine and Thailand is around 1.0 children per woman. 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 have 25 children. Over the next 30 years, those 25 children have 12 children. Using my math, within 100 years, China’s population of 1.4B humans drops to around 175M humans. (I used AI to test my theorem. It agreed.)
It's obviously more complicated than that, but you get the point.
Enter the Robots
Tesla is building 1,000,000 robots this year. These humanoid robots are built to work. They 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 reheat their Red Lobster leftovers from Red Lobster in the office microwave.
Maybe these two trends (technology & birth rates) are unrelated. But, for most of human history, civilizations have grown the birth rate. More workers. More families. More children. More labor to drive the economy.
By 2036 the number of robots on earth may outnumber the humans. That’s only ten years from now. But the real danger isn’t that the robots suddenly overthrow humanity in some dramatic fashion.
The real danger is quieter. Because change doesn’t happen overnight. It happens slowly over a long period of time. I wrote about that here.
Maybe 100 years from now isn’t really your problem. You’ll be taking a dirt nap. But aren’t you at least curious how this is likely to play out? I thought so.
We already use Waze because re-folding a paper map takes an Engineering degree from Georgia Tech. We stopped memorizing phone numbers. We stopped asking directions from strangers. We stopped balancing checkbooks. We stopped remembering birthdays. Each is a tiny surrender to technology. So tell me again how you’re not ready to give up control of your life?
“Modern societies increasingly view human beings the same way corporations view staffing costs: expensive, unpredictable, emotional, slow, and difficult to control or manage”.
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 adapt and adopt. The same way electricity or the internet went from “nice to have” to “need to have”. Can you imagine living without electricity or the internet? Me either.
Why This Is Different
The automobile replaced the horse. The desktop replaced the typewriter. But this time technology is replacing the worker. That's a very different conversation. There are entire factories in India where humans are performing mundane tasks that the robots observe.
Once they learn to do a task the skill is transferred to all the other robots in seconds. Imagine spending six months training your replacement, except your replacement never gets sick or tired and never wants to take the kids to DisneyWorld.
Once the robots start mowing your grass, walking your dog and vacuuming your house, it’s pretty easy to see how quickly we will adapt. Imagine your driverless car takes the robot to the grocery store. The robot shops for groceries, pays for them and stops to pick up Chick-fil-A on the way home. It’s coming faster than you think.
And here is where falling birth rates intersect with technology. 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.
Nobody will remember the day we handed over control because there won't be one. Aliens aren’t going to land in Times Square like the movies, either.
The surrender will happen one convenient decision at a time. We'll call it progress. We'll call it efficiency. We'll call it saving time. And one day in the future we'll wake up inside a civilization we never consciously chose. Because nothing is ever as dramatic as Hollywood suggests.
Maybe future historians will look back on this era and conclude that we just gave up. I’d love to hear what you think. Leave me a message by clicking the link below. I promise that you’ll hear back from me cause, you know, I’m a real person and all.
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