How are we going to handle the demographics issues?
Many around the world are starting to voice concern over declining fertility rates and aging populations. While some are holding out for longevity therapies, we will simply focus upon the fact that, as people age, they society losses productivity.
At the same time, they require more social services simply due to the aging process.
Throughout history, this means that economic decline was going to follow. There was really no way to separate the two. Population was one of the major components in the economic capability of a region.
This is no longer going to be the case.
Before going any further, let us be clear: demographics are still important. We are not discounting it entirely.
A country with a growing population, from an economic productivity standpoint faces a brighter future than one with a declining population. At the same time, a lower average age offers enormous advantages over those with a higher number.
However, technology can be a great equalizer. In this instance, we are dealing with something that is very powerful.
Why are robotics and AI destiny, an idea that was once applied to demographics?
Essentially, we are looking at the creation of new humans. Not only that, we are looking at super humans. This is also happening at a pace humans cannot rival.
A child that is born today is going to require a couple decades and hundreds of thousands of dollars before they can be a net contributor to society. Children, like older people, are an enormous drain. However, while the latter remains that way, only removing the burden by departing, childing, as the song says, are the future.
They become young adults, entering the workforce, and, perhaps, starting families of their own. This means they start the process of adding to the economic pool, many in more meaningful ways as they get older.
It is how society operated for the last hundred years.
That is all changing.
Today, we have the ability to cut decades off that time. While we are not seeing the production of robots to the degree we will, once that starts, a "person" will be able to contribute the second the batteries are charged.
There is no training, education, or waiting for the robot to "grow up". It is an economic producer once it goes live.
In fact, it is beyond what most humans can do.
To start, it will work a lot more hours, on an annual basis, than any single human. Then we have the system that it is connected to. Humans have individual knowledge; robots collective. Whatever was entered into the system, the robot knows once it is downloaded. Presuming it has the same mechanical abilities, it will be able to match any other robot that is out there with the same code.
What does this do for the economic growth potential of a nation?
Quite simply, it puts is on steroids. Consider the point in time where 25 million robots are produced by a company. This is roughly the population of the State of Florida.
To add to this situation, the early robots were all used to train the system. Whatever the use cases for these robots, each addition is instantly as capable as the others. We have a worker that is good for 18-20 hours per day, operating at a fraction of the cost of a human.
The story does not end there.
As more robots are created, we see more training data fed into the system. It becomes a self feeding system.
It is going to provide a massive wake up call to most everyone. Very few are aware of the serious implications of this. To me, this is why Web 3.0 is so important. Nevertheless, from a productivity standpoint, this advancement is enormous.
To serve the population, different structures are going to be required. Here is where we see the old and new clashing. Naturally, the old is going to hold onto what it can. Unfortunately for most, that will be nothing since they are going to lose what they have.
From a totality perspective, things are rosier. Economic output will skyrocket. This is part of why I talk about the Age of Abundance. Without a change in structure, it can be a very difficult situation for many. However, we can already see a pathway whereby nations (or more likely networks) can alter things.
Either way, demographics are going to move down a notch or two in importance. This can easily be offset by the output gains from AI and robotics.
