As of late I've really lost any deep interest in any culture war issues. I still enjoy talking about them, but even the 'actually important' matters like Trump's trials and possible re-election or the latest Supreme Court cases or the roiling racial tensions of the current era seem to be sideshows at best compared to the two significant developments which stand to have greater impact than almost all other matters combined:
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Humanity is seemingly a hop, skip, and/or jump away from emergence of true AGI.
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Humanity is also locked into a demographic decline that will eventually disrupt the stable global order and world economy. No solutions tried so far have worked or even shown promise. It may be too late for such solutions to prevent the decline.
I do conserve some amount of interest for the chance that SpaceX is going to jump start industry in low earth orbit, and for longevity/anti-aging science which seems poised for some large leaps. Yet, the issues of declining human population and its downstream effect on globalization as well as the potential for human level machine intelligence seem to utterly overshadow almost any other issue we could discuss, short of World War III or the appearance of another pandemic.
And these topics are getting mainstream attention as well. There's finally space to discuss the topics of smarter-than-human AI and less-fertile-than-panda humans in less niche forums and actual news stories that start raising questions.
I recently read the Situational Awareness report by Leopold Aschenbrenner, which is a matter-of-fact update on where things absolutely seem to be heading if straight lines continue to be straight for the next few years. I find it convincing if not compelling, but the argument that we might hit AGI around 2027 (with large error bars) no longer appears absurd. This is the first time I've read a decent attempt at extrapolating out when we could actually expect to encounter the "oh shit" moment when a computer is clearly able to outperform humans not just in limited domains, but across the board.
As for the collapsed birthrates, Peter Zeihan has been the most 'level-headed' of the prognosticators here. Once again, I find it fairly convincing, but also compelling that as we end up with far too few working-age, productive citizens trying to hold up civilization as the older generations age into retirement and switch to full-time consumption. Once again you only have to believe that straight lines will keep going straight to believe that this outcome is approaching in the near future years. The full argument is more complex.
The one thing that tickles me, however, is how these two 'inevitable' results are intrinsically related! AI + robotics offers a handy method to boost productivity even as your population ages. On the negative side, only a highly wealthy, productive, educated, and globalized civilization can produce the high technology that enables current AI advances. The Aschenbrenner report up there unironically expects that 100's of millions of chips will be brought online and that global electricity production will increase by 10% before 2030ish. Anything that might interrupt chip production puts a kink in these AGI timelines. If demographic changes have as much of an impact as Zeihan suggests, it could push them back beyond the current century unless there's another route to producing all the compute and power the training runs will require.
So I find myself staring at the lines representing the increasing size of LLMs, the increasing amount of compute being deployed, the increasing funding being thrown at AI companies and chip manufacturers, and the increasing "performance" of the resultant models and then staring at the lines that represent plummeting birthrates in developed countries, and a decrease in the working age population, and thus the decrease in economic productivity that will likely result. Add on the difficulty of maintaining a peaceful, globalized economy under these constraints.
And it sure seems like the entire future of humanity hinges on which of these lines hits a particular inflection point first. And I sure as shit don't know which one it'll be.
I'd condense the premises of my position thusly:
Energy Production and High-end computer chip production are necessary inputs to achieving AGI on any timeline whatsoever. Both are extremely susceptible to demographic collapse and de-globalization. If significant deglobalization of trade occurs, there is no way any country will have the capacity to produce enough chips and energy to achieve AGI.
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Human-level AGI that can perform any task that humans can will resolve almost any issues posed by demographic decline in terms of economic productivity and maintaining a globalized, civilized world.
Or more succinctly: If deglobalization arrives first, we won't achieve AGI. If AGI arrives first, deglobalization will be obviated.
Peter Zeihan argues that AI won't prevent the chaos. As for AGI prophets, I have rarely, in fact almost never, have seen decreasing population levels as a variable in their calculation of AI timelines.
The sense this gives me is that the AGI guys don't seem to include demographic collapse as an extant risk to AGI timelines in their model of the world. Yes they account for like interruption to chip manufacturing as a potential problem, but not accounting for this coming about due to not enough babies. And those worrying about demographic collapse discount the odds of AGI arriving in time to prevent the coming chaos.
So I find myself constantly waffling between the expectation that we'll see a new industrial revolution as AI tech creates a productivity boom (before it kills us all or whatever), and the expectation that the entire global economy will slowly tear apart at the seams and we see the return to lower tech levels out of necessity. How can I fine tune my prediction when the outcomes are so divergent in nature?
And more importantly, how can I arrange my financial bets so as to hedge against the major downsides of either outcome?
Also, yes, I'm discounting the arguments about Superintelligence altogether, and assuming that we'll have some period of time where the AI is useful and friendly before becoming far too intelligent to be controlled which lets us enjoy the benefits of the tech. I do not believe this assumption, but it is necessary for me to have any discourse about AGI at without falling on the issue of possible human extinction.
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I urge caution on taking Zeihan seriously. He's very charismatic, I watched one of his talks and the talk about rivers and geography was quite interesting.
But is he actually right? The man was predicting 'collapse of China in 5 years' for about the last 20 years. He's been predicting 'America number 1 as the rest of the world collapses' for ages. And that's not the world we're seeing. His core thesis wasn't just wrong, it was the opposite of what actually happened. It's not 'America retreats inwards in splendid isolation as everyone else fights, world sea trade collapses along with China', it's 'American relative power is diminishing as China, Russia, Iran work together to pressure and undermine the US world order, which America bitterly defends'.
Whenever you see Zeihan you should think 'what if he's just completely wrong'. And I think he's wrong specifically here too. If we're talking AGI by 2027 or 2030, then demographics doesn't really matter. War may well delay AGI but AI is now a part of military development. China has their robot gun dogs. Israel has their AI targeted airstrike program. Everyone wants the targeting and sensor edge. High-tech wars are won by sensors and software and AI is clearly important for both. China has Made in China 2025, high-tech development to develop new industrial forces. The US has the CHIPS Act. The race is on!
Population aging starts really mattering by mid-century. It already has some effect of course but how could it severely slow AI development, which is happening on the year-to-year level? And there are clear counter measures to aging-induced malaise. People can reduce the consumption of the old. Nations can reintroduce fertility. It's really not that hard. People naturally want to have children. It's only that vast cultural energy goes into suppressing this urge - TV, movies, memes and so on all create an expectation that young men and women should spend their most fertile years in higher education and work, not raising children. It's a cultural issue that needs a cultural solution.
Affirmative action for parents in the workforce and education. Glamourize parenthood. Return to traditional marriage, encourage devout religion. Anything but these measly subsidies.
I read his most recent book and I find that he seems to be directionally right about most issues. The slow death of German manufacturing/industry, for example
In fact, part of his thesis in the book is that American power does recede because the U.S. stops being very concerned about what happens beyond its borders and immediate sphere of influence.
And I have yet to find a good counterargument to his primary thrust, which I read as follows:
All of this seems very straightforward and 'baked in' at this point.
So all it would take is the U.S. to be unable or unwilling to keep the sea routes safe for international trade to break down the systems that allow advanced economies to exist in countries without local energy or raw materials or capital reserves. If the giant cargo ships can't safely travel then EVERYTHING gets more expensive.
I have yet to see evidence that this actually works under our current technological and economic regime.
And I am not sure how you'd convince all the women who currently enjoy massive privileges to live their lives free of any real 'obligations' to accept having 3 kids each to bring things back on track, when they can simply vote for a regime that will support them regardless.
Simply put, I find Zeihan's thesis more compelling even if he gets the timing wrong, than I do the alternate thesis that somehow this massive overhang of elderly people who cannot produce value but consume huge portions of it via medical care and such when the working age-population is continually shrinking will NOT cause some serious strain.
The key thing is that the US isn't indispensable here. The Houthis aren't blocking shipping generally, they're targeting Western-aligned shipping because there's a global struggle for power between two power blocs. The US does the exact same thing as the Houthis with sanctions against its enemies. Sometimes they seize the ships as opposed to flinging missiles at them but the result is basically the same.
It's not that the US pulls back and the whole thing collapses into anarchy. If the US pulls back, other powers will replace America in setting rules and norms. That's why the US isn't pulling back. There are great advantages in being the strongest great power. The buying power of the USD is propped up by American military power. We have the Washington Consensus (named because the World Bank and IMF are based in Washington) the UN based in NY. The US is clearly very concerned about far-flung places like Ukraine or Taiwan. The former isn't important to US interests but it is important for US prestige and dominance in world affairs. The latter is very important for US interests, losing Taiwan and possibly South Korea would be catastrophic for America.
America has gotten used to importing cheap manufactured goods from China and exporting little bits of paper to pay for them. America has gotten used to sanctioning everyone else for poor behaviour, attacking countries without facing serious consequences. That's not baked into the universe, that's an arrangement based on changeable power distributions. The British used to set rules and control the seas. The US took over that role. China could take that role, they have a much bigger maritime industry than the US does. They're the biggest trading nation, they're naturally interested in controlling sea lanes and trade routes.
Highly religious groups have high fertility, this is pretty straightforward!
The alternate thesis isn't 'growing number of elderly people soaking up resources doesn't cause problems' but 'states will take action to prevent elderly people consuming the resources'. Eventually people will break out of the neoliberal fantasy that fiddling with subsidies will raise fertility, or that universal basic income is solely reserved for the old.
They're not a particularly good candidate because they have a harder time projecting power, especially into the Atlantic.
And their demographic problems are even worse and more advanced than the West's... and that's just what they admit. I have no doubt the CCP could attempt some crazy political solutions. But as I mentioned elsewhere in here that still requires 20+ years to raise the children of that new baby boom to the age where they can become productive.
Yes, the Amish, having entirely rejected modern cultural, technological, and economic norms are doing fine here.
But the majority of us are living with the standard set of such norms and have to navigate the system where others hold these norms or similar versions.
I don't think there's a policy prescription I've yet seen which would manage to bring modern society's fertility levels up to that of the devoutly religious without also impacting their material conditions in a way that lowers standard of living.
Now, that tradeoff may be worthwhile, but good luck selling it.
But that's why the demographic issue is concerning. Maintaining the order when you have intense economic strain due to aging population at below replacement level unable to produce the necessary output to maintain the country's economy at the level necessary to field an effective naval force. Ukraine's demographics are impacting its ability to field an effective military and they will probably never recover.
The U.S.' military capacity is not immune from this.
Like, this is the point. Historically this scenario is rather unprecedented. Other scenarios where human population decreased in a rapid fashion usually indicate economic collapse.
I've yet to see ANY example from history where human population went on a steep decline without economic fallout attached.
The U.S., if it is suffering economic strain from such a decline, could be rendered unable to intervene if conflicts start breaking out around the globe, and such demonstrated failure would only encourage further defection.. The limits of U.S. hegemony are already on display since the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
And if the U.S. itself is self-sufficient for food, energy, and manufacturing, surely the motivation to keep spending time and effort maintaining the order will sink, too.
And I'm trying not to catastrophize here, but I keep asking for some reasonable solution that has demonstrated success in the past, and nobody has actually provided one.
So my priors would suggest that we have gotten used to being in an era of prosperity that is anomalous in the historical record, and the effort needed to maintain this prosperity could easily outstrip our capacity without some drastic intervention. Such as AGI.
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This feels like a false dichotomy. Most people are having children and that we just need to shift people towards having very marginally more children. Not going from 0->3. Women's incentives as a group if anything go the other way, since the vast majority are having children, "punishing" defectors should be an easy sell if packaged right.
Yeah, but then you have the % of those that are out of wedlock, or whose parents ultimately divorced, and the median age when they have that first child is pretty damn high which is suggesting that family formation is struggling in some ways.
I might believe we could solve the birth rate issue in aggregate by paying women to pump out kids, but that would have some foreseeable second-order effects that might be problematic on their own.
I think the birthrate issue is multidimensional, since I believe the evidence that people WANT to have kids, but can't ignore that so many are delaying the decision or are finding themselves unable to achieve it, I am finding myself confused (except, not really) as to why revealed preferences are so different from stated preferences on this issue.
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