Naive question- why does the human population need to keep growing? Why can’t we let it shrink? If AI and robotics are going to come to fruition in the next 50 years, why do we need so many people?
[delayed]
it wouldn't be a bad thing except that we're heading towards a future where there's too many old people for the economy to sustain itself.
We can't do anything, because in almost the entire world, the only thing stopping you from having a baby is your biology and your willingness.
Not that I disagree with you, but as US society, and AIUI many other modern societies, are organized around a growing population. In order to have Medicare and Social Security in their current forms, you need n increasing number of working age people to keep the programs solvent.
Changing this, and moving to a society where AI and robots solve the problem of letting people retire (presuming that's possible, technologically) would require a massive shift in how people are, for lack of a better word, valued by society. Right now, we assign a lot of value to individuals based on their level of economic productivity.
It would be a change of considerable magnitude to let AI and robots create the economic value and then distribute it to individuals on some "fair" basis. I suggest that based on the current situation, finding agreement on what constitutes "fair" would be challenging, at best.