Dystopian stories envision a world where robots turn on their human creators and reduce the world to rubble. Many AI alarmists borrow this kind of language to highlight their concerns. AI will become sentient and wield its newfound power and knowledge to wipe humans off the face of the earth.

Suppose, though, that AI genuinely poses a threat to the human species, but in a much subtler way?

A New York Post report references the work of Oklahoma State University professor and author Subhash Kak, who believes that because AI will end up taking so many human jobs, the global birth rate will catastrophically plummet. Ben Cost reports,

Currently, techsperts fear that AI is rendering humanity obsolete in every sector, from law to academia and even romance.

As a result, they suggest, birth rates will plunge as people will be hesitant to have kids who are destined to be unemployed, especially given the exorbitant costs of rearing children.

The birth rate in many countries, including the United States, has fallen over the past few decades, reaching near historical lows. With more jobs offloaded to AI, Kak projects that the rate will continue to drop.

Work is Important, Especially for Dads

Kak isn’t alone in his concerns about AI’s impact on the global birth rate and family formation. Social scientist Brad Wilcox, known for his research on the importance of family and fatherhood, cowrote a piece in Compact with Grant Martsolf about how AI will hurt working class families in the United States. They write,

Men are more likely to be viewed as good prospects for marriage, more likely to get married, and more likely to stay married when they have a good job. “His” work matters more for marriage than “her” work. One Harvard study, for instance, showed that a couple’s risk of divorce shot up 33 percent if the husband was unemployed, but rose not at all if the wife was unemployed. 

Wilcox and Martsolf also write how President Donald Trump ran on behalf of the working class and yet wants to make sure that the United States remains on the cutting edge of AI innovation. Resolving this tension will be vital if Trump wants to retain his relationship with the American working class. With potentially 300 million jobs at stake, working class people could find themselves at the raw end of the AI deal.

However, new technologies have a long history of disrupting economies and often have opened up a plethora of new jobs for the taking. The question is whether working class Americans will have the opportunity and ability to adapt to an AI-disrupted job market.

Work itself, both mental and menial, is a major part of human life. Without work, it can be hard for people to maintain a sense of structure, direction, and purpose. Contributing to the common good offers us a sense of satisfaction and meaning. If we were to live in a fully automated world, would we fall into existential crisis? In that situation, it’s certainly easy to imagine people having less children. A nihilistic world run by computers doesn’t seem all that life affirming.