[rice_classic]

Random thought.

Before mankind civilized, when we were still hunter/gatherers, there was no human use for horses, humans had no idea the value a horse was to them, yet. The horse population was tiny. Then mankind learned how control their food supply about 10,000 years ago as the neolithic era began and suddenly mankind had a use for horses, a big use. For thousands of years horses were a lot of things but primarily function of transportation. They had "jobs". Their population as a result grew exponentially to fill those jobs or more succinctly, their population was "grown" to fit that need and there were lots of horses. Fast forward to the industrial age when horses are replaced by machines.. in farming, transport and pretty much any job there was for a horse. The horse population has dropped back to pre-neolithic numbers in just under 100 years due to 'industrialization'.

Why does that keep me up at night?

Robots, more aptly, artificial intelligence, will eventually have the same affect on humans as industrialization had on horses. AI will be the next 'industrialized age' but AI-industrialization will replace all the functions a human has in the production of everything and anything. The human necessity will drop to <10%. 90% of human beings will be essentially irrelevant for anything. Like the horses, our population will should fall in lockstep with this change but unlike horses, we have strong social, biological and religious attachments to prolific reproduction. If the AI replacement of our labor happens in-pace with a falling reproduction rate (like what's happening in Japan) then the replacement of humans with AI may have limited interruptions but if human jobs are rapidly replaced by AI, wiping out the human need in entire industries, in 1 or 2 generations then it will be catastrophic. The peaceful reduction of the population would come from a rapid reduction in human reproduction. I don't see that happening so the rapid reduction of the population will most likely have to happen via death.

And I'm not done there.

Let's fast forward to the logical conclusion and assume that the AI replacement of humans doesn't result in a Terminator like future (let's hope!) but instead maybe closer to that of Wall-E. When humans become irrelevant regarding the production of everything/anything, when it's all done for us.. will money still be relevant? Would there even be a need for an 'economy'? What will the reduction in the human population look like?

Today we're horses in high demand, tomorrow we won't be.

So that's my random thought today.