Are we going through tech-stinction?
An Oklahoma tech knowledgeable predicted that synthetic intelligence will change into so omnipresent on the planet that Earth — with a present estimated inhabitants of about 8 billion — can have simply 100 million individuals left by the 12 months 2300.
“It’s going to be devastating for society and world society,” Subhash Kak, who teaches laptop science at Oklahoma State College in Stillwater, Oklahoma, informed the Solar. “I think people really don’t have a clue.”
Nevertheless, the “Age of Artificial Intelligence” writer doesn’t assume this dystopian future will come about by way of nuclear conflict or different “Terminator”-evoking situations, however reasonably via changing our jobs.
“Computers or robots will never be conscious, but they will be doing literally all that we do because most of what we do in our lives can be replaced,” mentioned Kak.
At present, techsperts worry that AI is rendering humanity out of date in each sector, from regulation to academia and even romance.
In consequence, they counsel, beginning charges will plunge as individuals can be hesitant to have youngsters who’re destined to be unemployed, particularly given the exorbitant prices of rearing kids.
With out individuals making infants, the worldwide inhabitants will endure an apocalyptic blow, Kak theorized.
“There are demographers who are suggesting that as a consequence, the world population will collapse, and it could go down to as low as just 100 million people on the entire planet Earth in 2300 or 2380,” he warned of the surprising drop.
With solely that many individuals left on the planet — which Kak famous was simply over the inhabitants of the UK — nice metropolises equivalent to London and New York will shortly flip into ghost cities, based on the professor.
“I have all the data in the book. This is not just my personal opinion,” mentioned the pc scientist, who claims this inhabitants shrinkflation is occurring earlier than our eyes.
“People have stopped having babies. Europe, China, Japan, and the most rapid fall in population right now is taking place in Korea,” Kak declared. “Now, I’m not saying that these trends will continue, but it’s very hard to reverse them because a lot of people have children for a variety of reasons.”
He added, “One is, of course, social. In the back of your mind, you have a sense of what the future is going to be like.”
Kak invoked the warnings of SpaceX’s Elon Musk, who has been fairly vocal about plummeting beginning charges and inhabitants decline and has used it as a rationale for colonizing Mars.
“That’s why Musk is saying maybe humans should go to space, maybe build colonies elsewhere, so that should such a tragedy hit Earth, then it could be reseeded,” mentioned Kak.
And whereas he’s unsure whether or not humanity will go extinct, he mentioned that “what is absolutely certain is that there is a population collapse occurring right before our eyes.”