This is the kind of reductive thinking that plagues discussions about AI and the future: imagining extraordinary breakthroughs in one area while assuming inertia everywhere else. It leads, paradoxically, to imagining a civilisation advanced enough to solve ageing while importing all of today’s limits in every other domain into that future vision of the world.
To be clear, my point is that the same breakthroughs required to solve ageing would probably coincide with major advances in automation, robotics, land management, energy, agriculture, desalination and food production. Meaning that population control in such a future might not be as much of an issue as it appears from today’s vantage point.
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u/H_A_A_K_O_N
You still need new people. A lot will die from accident, murder, wars, suicide.
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u/Cryptizard
If every human is allowed to have one child then the population will stabilize at exactly 2x its starting level. If we have the tech to cure aging then we can definitely support 2x the number of humans, so no problem.
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u/Appropriate-Tough104
If we get there we’ll probably also solve energy and space travel so can expand our species to other habitable planets
18
u/rlanham1963
None of us know what even advanced AI will do to life in 5 or 10 years. Speculating on massive social events like an end to ageing is effectively impossible to do with any foresight. We are on the cusp, even without ageing change, of the greatest social change ever. And no one knows nor understands the implications of dramatically less work, dramatically less cash flowing, dramatically lower real estate values as investments, etc. etc. These things have never (ever) happened before. One looks to things like the Black Death or the rise of modern public health medicine (mostly chlorinate water) to see equivalent changes to even begin to compare. And those are not close. Watch programmers. As they go away (and they are) you will see, first, peak employment, then peak despair, then acceptance, then change. How? Implications? The smartest and deepest thinkers can only guess right now.
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u/blueheaven84
Not having kids is a small price to pay. I hate that people aren't sure between 1. having kids and 2. NOT DYING
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u/FiresideFox05
I really think that the ‘eventually’ there is doing a lot of very hard work. Odds are this shit would only be available in modernized / industrialized societies, and half of those are working their way to a slow demographic collapse, East Asia in particular. It would take South Korea or Japan hundreds of years to reach any meaningful degree of overpopulation if the old people stopped dying; by then, it’s seem as if the planet or perhaps the solar system would look so different there’s really no sense bothering to infer about it.
7
u/Virtual_Crow
If average number of kids is less than 1, then no. If the number is 0.5 (average couple has one kid, and all their kids' couples have one also etc) the population only doubles eventually. With random accident mortality and the trend of people to not have kids as they get richer, it's probably not an issue.
5
u/peterflys
I think we’re forgetting the prospect of transhumanism and posthumanism. Why would we stop at biological longevity? We won’t. Once we figure out how to interface our brains with AI, we’ll move our consciousness out of our bodies. Biological breeding will stop.
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u/ionetic
Laughs in microplastics.
4
u/MisterBilau
If we can completely cure aging (as in biological immortality, not just extension), we will have the tech to expand to other planets. Probably easier to do, actually - we kinda know how to do it already, it's just a matter of resources, whereas we're very far from achieving immortality from a tech standpoint. Then "overpopulation" will be a non issue.
3
u/oadephon
If there's enough abundance in healthcare to solve aging, there will probably be enough abundance in everything else to support a growing population.
3
u/GreasyRim
Frankly, it looks like we're becoming uninterested in reproduction, at least in the US.
3
u/Strange_Sleep_406
lol lmao even
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u/bigdipboy
No they’d just sell immortality to the super rich and everyone else would still die
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u/AcrobaticKitten
As far as I know if you'd cure aging the lifespan would be 500 years max, even though aging is stopped life threatening risks are still there.
2
u/NegotiationWilling45
This problem will have any number of currently unforeseen factors that will impact the answer.
It won’t be today’s world at that point.
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u/ziplock9000
What they did in China would have to happen. Assuming we don't vastly increase technology and put bases on other planets.
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u/SmugPolyamorist
There's a lot of whatif's to consider. A few are;
Fertility rates in developed countries are already heading well below 2. Would this reverse? Perhaps, if you're eternally youthful.
Will the fertility rate trend be reversed by selection pressure?(orthogonal to your hypothetical really)
Is a society where we've cured aging but not expanded into space or massively densified earth likley?
2
u/[deleted]
With AI and most likely super abundance, there would be no reason to ban reproduction.
Also, we won't have governments run by humans anymore.
Plus with the advances in robotics and synthetics, we probably won't even need biological bodies anymore.
That would also cure aging.
And as another commenter said, with the advances in tech we would probably expand our species out into the stars.
2
u/ExoTauri
We're gonna need a shit ton of people to be able to populate the solar system, so no.
2
u/Virtual_Plant_5629
i'd be really curious what kind of timeline has it taking until 2050
that's an insanely long time at the current rate of advance.
even without AI that would be a really long timeline.
with ai.. it's an eternity af
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u/TheRebelMastermind
They will ban reproduction as soon as they find out how to make that happen in shit countries. Regardless of aging
2
u/Stahlboden
Birth rates are declining accross the board and children are sort of symbolic immortality so with cured aging, people would have even less incentives to make babies. Adding to this the fact that deaths unlrelated to aging would still occur, and we might have sort of a balance.
2
u/MeasurementOwn6506
The peons of the world will have been made artificially extinct through various initiatives i.e. another COVID, chemicals reducing fertility in foods and other means. So this won't be an issue
2
u/Stamperdoodle1
If humans ever cure aging - The only thing that would happen is the ultra-rich would live forever. Our lives would not change at all.
2
u/Pulselovve
Why wouldn't they want to share the cure with you? What is their incentive?
1
u/zombosis
That would only be for the rich
1
u/RonocNYC
In a world of ASI human reproduction would be pretty tightly managed as it would be in a game reserve or zoo and that's probably being generous about ASI alignment.
1
u/0sko59fds24
By that time we are either multi-planetary or extinct
1
u/1a1b
Populations in developed countries decline without immigration. Increased longevity would mean countries can reduce immigration while still maintaining population growth.
1
u/Some-Habit-1428
Read Scythe by Neal Shusterman
1
u/clandestineVexation
Cure aging but not death. Statistically most people die before they die “of old age”, that’s why it’s a population pyramid and not a population rectangle. People will still die of other causes even if biologically they could live in perpetuity. Maybe it will balance out and solve the western birthrate crash problem
1
u/New_Public_2828
Aren't they trying to do that now indirectly? Puts tinfoil hat back on
1
u/Important-Figure-512
I think people would need to kill themselves because who the fuck wants to live forever that’s like torture
1
u/ThrowRA-football
With better technology we could easily have 200-300 billion people without it impacting the environment too much. Green Energy will make pollution go away. Better food production will feed a bigger population. Better Robotics and resource extraction will give us an abundance of raw materials. And using Arcology type housing could house a bigger population.
And this is assuming we don't colonize any other planets ever, and don't also create artificially more living spaces on earth or anywhere else. This will give the world a population density roughly equivalent to Japan. So a bit more densely populated but still having lots of green spaces.
This doesn't even take into account the dramatic dropping of birth rates around the world. I honestly think we won't even want to think about implementing any population control measures because of the dropping population. Curing aging might be what saves humanity from going extinct.
1
u/Luvirin_Weby
Most likely no need to ban. As there is basically no lack of land, earth vcould support easily 10 times the population and the solar system a million times and people do die even without aging and so on. There might be limits on locale at some times...
Also I am not sure everyone wants to live forever, I mean I do as there is always something new to learn or experience, but I have heard many people voicing things that they do not want to.
As for inequality: Things tend to swing in that regard, as we went from the robber barons to the much more equal thing after ww2 to current technocratic elite, so future swings in the opposite direction are again likely.
1
u/pink_goblet
the level of bio-engineering and molecular precision required to halt senescence typically implies mastery over matter itself. you would solve many other issues affecting climate and greatly increase the carrying capacity of the planet by orders of magnitude.
1
u/cfehunter
Conversely this means we get to keep all of our greatest scientific minds.
It means the complete abolishment of the pension burden, you really will be able to work until you die. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing depends on whether you enjoy what you do I suppose.
A lot would need to change, absolutely, but outlawing reproduction isn't likely. You'd be immune to ageing, not death. Sooner or later, we're all going, no matter how good medicine gets.
1
u/NotAnotherEmpire
With current birth rates in advanced economies, that seems unnecessary.
1
u/LymelightTO
We already live in a world where the TFR is precipitously dropping as people in developed countries choose to delay having children later and later, sometimes indefinitely, as they exit the fertility window. If you cured aging, presumably making the fertility window indefinitely long, I would expect people would choose to defer having children much longer.
Also, this assumes addressing aging happens, ceteris paribus. If we’re curing aging, we’re likely resolving scarcity altogether, shortly thereafter. I wouldn’t worry about overpopulation, no.
1
u/MasterDisillusioned
They wouldn't have to, they'd just cull the rest of us.
1
u/SilverDetail2713
We can't even solve male pattern baldness. There hasn't been any real breakthrough in medicine this century...
If we'll be able to keep the pace finding new antibiotics to fight super bacteria, be thankful...
1
u/Whispering-Depths
Don't be silly. If we cured aging, it would be in a matter of less than a decade, not 25 years, and it would imply advancements and innovation that make that a non-issue.
Solve our need for food and our ability to not re-use waste in general, and start growing vertically in both directions, and we can support exponentially more humans if we're stupid enough to keep everyone on Earth exclusively.
1
u/HotKarldalton
Anyone else watch Mr. Nobody? Very fitting movie for OP's post.
1
u/hideousox
When humans ‘cure’ aging in 2050, the cure will be available to the ultra rich. The rest of us will keep dying, even younger, while we throw turds at each other, blaming our neighbours for our ultra rich inflicted troubles.
1
u/Ok_Height3499
Oh, I hope so. They ought yo do it now.
1
u/Professional_Dot2761
Our solar system is pretty big and humans uploading is the step after lev.
1
u/djkool_yanky
You need to pay for life long subscription fees to the governments. Starts at basic - diseases cannot be avoided. Premium - no diseases.