Population Size, Technological Innovation, and Mankind's Future

James Carroll

So in 2014, I spoke at the conference about the rate of technological change, and I want to kind of encourage everyone to review that presentation at some point. Because today I want to build on it and add to what I said back then. But in short, six years ago, I asked the fundamental question: is the rate of technological progress linear or is it exponential? No, there’s a singularitarian view of exponential change, and then there’s kind of the pessimist view that it’s linear, and I said that’s the only thing that matters. If it’s exponential, the world is going to be completely different. In a little while. If it’s linear, some of these things transhumanists imagine may never come to pass.

James Carroll

So to get at that we said that the answer to the question depended on the various paradigms we had for why technology advances. Under the low hanging fruit model, each advancement is more difficult than the one before it because you have to reach further and further up. And the rate of innovation slows over time. But under the combinatorics model, each advancement creates a new adjacent possible and a new opportunity for innovation by combining other things that have been created, and that speeds up the rate of change. Which creates that view of exponential change.

James Carroll

But our conclusion back then was that the overly confident claims of the singularitarians such as Raymond Kurzweil were probably unfounded in the future, although it wasn’t. obviously linear, it was at least uncertain. Today, I want to extend that discussion to two additional paradigms for innovation and to discuss their relationships with the ex environmentally relevant topic of population growth.

James Carroll

So here’s the two paradigms. They’re invention and specialization, trade, and the economics of scale, or what I’m just going to call scale. The scale paradigm for short.

James Carroll

So let’s talk about each. In the first model, technological progress is created primarily by Invention and innovation. So creative people invent new technologies, and this is the primary driver behind progress. Once they’re invented, they exist. They don’t go away. For example, once the sewing machine is invented, clothing becomes cheaper, more readily available because we have technology driven by innovation or by invention.

James Carroll

In this picture of human progress, population sizes impact the rate of progress only inasmuch as they impact the number of creative people out there who are inventing new things. But there is a feedback. The technology impacts population by making larger population sizes possible through things like increased food production, reducing epidemics. I it’s humorous that I wrote that before COVID. 19 happened and lowering the infant mortality rate. In this view, technological progress drives population size rather than the when you’re out.

James Carroll

But an alternative view for the causes of technological progress is provided by the specialization and trade model. According to this view, technological progress is not primarily driven by innovation. but by specialization, trade, and the economics of scale.

James Carroll

So as an example, if I’m only going to produce a few garments for me and my family, and I want to do it quickly, then the best tool are these simple bone needles. used by our ancestors for generations. Further, the sophistication of such single use tools is likely to remain low so long as they are used rarely.

James Carroll

When population sizes grow sufficiently large, one person can specialize in making hand axes, while another specializes in making sewing needles, and then they can trade so that both have access to the hand axes and the sewing needles. The time to make the tool is likely to decrease while the special sophistication and availability of the tool increases.

James Carroll

When population size grows even larger, most people no longer need the sewing needle. and someone can specialize in making the clothing for the entire group. It’s only at this point that the sewing machine actually becomes worth the effort to create, even if you know how to make one. A sewing machine takes a great amount of time and effort to build. It’s not worth the cost for somebody who is only going to create a few garments to make a sewing machine from scratch first. It’s easier just to hand sew a few garments. And this is true even if sewing machines have been invented and we know how to make them. Even if the person in question knows how to make them.

James Carroll

However, if someone is going to create a thousand garments, then it becomes worth paying the upfront time costs of creating a sewing machine first. And that only happens when the population size reaches a certain point and the population is specializing in trading.

James Carroll

In this case, Invention is not the primary driver for technological progress behind the sewing machine. No one makes the sewing machine until there’s a reason to make it. And there’s no reason to make it or invent it until the population size is large enough.

James Carroll

When it gets even larger, it becomes worth it for one person to specialize in making sewing machines, to trade with all the other people who specialize in creating garments. This adds another layer to a growing hierarchical structure. And once someone is specializing in making many sewing machines, it’s even worth their time to invent assembly lines and processes that increase the quality of the machines they create while lowering the cost of the sewing machines. Until it becomes economically feasible in a totally crazy twist of fate for our family to own an incredibly powerful, versatile sewing machine that we’ve used about twice.

James Carroll

In this model, population size is the key driver for technological progress. This model makes testable predictions. For example, it predicts that technological advancement could stall or could significantly slow when populations stop growing. And it predicts that technological progress could even regress if a population size shrinks.

James Carroll

In fact, there are several examples from history that bear this out. Technological progress in isolated regions has stagnated, and in some instances With very small population size, it’s even regressed. Historically, this happened in the Andaman Islands and in Tasmania, where the pattern of isolation leading to technological regression was especially pronounced. And it’s worth pointing out, they knew how to do these things, they just stopped doing them because the population size didn’t make it worth it anymore, which would counteract the invention model.

James Carroll

So which is correct? Well, it’s almost certain that the truth involves a mix of these two theories. GDP has grown exponentially over the course of human history, and the growth has mirrored the growth of population sizes and advances into Technology has enabled exponential growth in population, and the growth in population has created the environment that favors further technological advancement.

James Carroll

However, the idea that technology will continue to expand exponentially into the foreseeable future as predicted by the likes of Raymond Kerzelweil without an increase in population at least has been shown to be inaccurate, and it appears that exponential improvements in technology Technology may be impossible without exponential increases in population size.

James Carroll

So, the implications for the future of humanity and the Earth’s environment are profound. Is technological advancement and the reduction in suffering that it creates that go with it? The reductions in poverty, hunger, and human misery are to continue at a rapid pace, then human population sizes will need to continue to grow. However, at some point, growing population size will hit the carrying capacity of the earth, and the human population may already be at a size that creates extreme damage to the environment and to the survival of the species that share our planet.

James Carroll

It would seem that we are faced with choosing between two undesirable outcomes, either irreparable damage to the Earth’s environment or a significant decrease in mankind’s technological progress or rate of technological progress. Neither option seems desirable to me. So mankind, what do we do? What can be done?

James Carroll

Well, mankind appears to be on the verge, I think, of creating several new technological innovations that could potentially help to solve this problem. The first is 3D printing. The next is artificial intelligence and robotics. And the next is space colonization. So let’s talk about how they help, how each of these help.

James Carroll

In many ways, 3D printing breaks the economics of scale, and the cost of creating a single object for one person is roughly the same as creating thousands of the same product. thus decoupling the cost from population size and even from the complexity of the component being produced. Once a 3D object’s description is invented and created, it’s turned into information. Can be reproduced and instantiated by anyone who wants it.

James Carroll

Like 3D printing, artificial intelligence and robotics promises to provide a general-purpose problem solver. Automation is nothing new, but with advanced robotics, it may be possible to automate the production of on demand products, thus further decoupling the advancement of population size.

James Carroll

In theory, once these innovations are in hand, they could allow a single individual living in near isolation, once they have the machines and the 3D printer and the robotics, et cetera, to then create tools, goods, and services that they need. in a way that would previously have been impossible without an extensive trade network and a large population size.

James Carroll

And the final technology was the living in space. It could, in theory, allow the human population to grow and to expand into the foreseeable future without doing irreparable damage to the Earth’s environment. In fact, it could even help One of the big problems with our environment right now is invasive species. Well, if you can isolate certain species in certain sub biomes, you know, in different space stations, et cetera, you could solve some of those things and possibly save species and all sorts of interesting Things are possible.

James Carroll

The thing is, living in space is a truly daunting task, and it’s always appeared to be in our far, far, far future if it happens at all. However, recent innovations such as reusability and orbital refueling, they are currently poised to reduce the cost of moving materials to and from space at a truly remarkable rate. NASA has plans to return mankind to the moon, presumably by twenty twenty four, this time to stay in a permanent moon base. Elon Musk wants to produce a permanent, self sufficient colony on Mars in a similarly aggressive time frame. These aspirational time frames are unlikely to be met, in my view. However, it’s increasingly inevitable, I believe, that they will happen eventually, preferably sooner rather than later.

James Carroll

While it seems certain that we will visit the moon and Mars in the relatively near future, whether we can create a fully and truly self sufficient colony there I think is far more uncertain. The very issues of scale we’ve been discussing are commonly overlooked an incredibly significant obstacle. Think about this. Living in space requires a level of technology more advanced than living on the earth. If the paradigm of scale is correct, and that’s the real driver of technological innovation, and we regress when we’re isolated in small communities, then that technological level also requires a population size. Potentially is larger, larger than what we have on Earth to have technology more advanced than what we have on Earth. And that’s a difficult catch-22.

James Carroll

To produce a large, self sufficient colony, you need advanced technology. But to locally produce the advanced technology, you need a large population. But as the colony grows, it will be increasingly expensive to supply it from Earth. It needs to be self sufficient. But until they grow sufficiently large, they may not be able to supply themselves with that technology. This is a big problem, and it’s underappreciated, I think.

James Carroll

It’s more difficult than most seem to realize, but I believe that it’s not completely insurmountable. Some physical materials and technology can be shipped from the Earth. and costs are continuing to fall for doing that shipping. Information will be relatively easy to ship and entertainment and that sort of thing, but I believe that we’ll eventually need vastly more advanced three D printing, robotics and artificial intelligence to make this thing work. Notice those are some of the same technologies that we would help decouple the rate of technological advancement on Earth from the population size on Earth.

James Carroll

So what does all this mean? If we wish to see continued technological progress while respecting and preserving the Earth’s environment, then the task of the next few years will not be easy. But I think we know which technologies we will need and that will need to be advanced to make the future we want, as transhumanists especially. Mankind’s future and the future of many species who are our fellow travelers are at stake. But I believe we’re living in the generation that will determine our collective future course for good or for ill.

James Carroll

So are there questions? Some of you have been putting Some questions over in the chat, but if you’re willing to just unmute and ask questions here, that will help too. And I’ll read what you’ve written over here.

James Carroll

So one of the there’s a question, I’m not sure who it’s from, was asking if I believe that the fertility rate would the falling fertility rate would make human populations peak. I think so. I think that’s just going to happen. Not invariably, but it’s possible.

James Carroll

Can we complete continue exponential increase in technology and efficiency through AI? Yes, I think we can. That was kind of my goal, actually, is to say that if we’re going to have a population that peaks so we don’t damage our environment, what we need is artificial intelligence, AI, 3D printing, etc. , to allow our technology to continue to increase.

Speaker 2

Yeah, because then essentially what you could have is unlimited human intelligences in in in a in an infinitesimal space. And then you can Yeah. Okay. Fantastic.

James Carroll

Yeah, that was kind of the goal of the talk was to make that point that we will need that. What else? There’s a question to the end.

James Carroll

To what extent does locality play into this space scale hypothesis? Is the global population the most important factor? I think locality depends on how connected I don’t know who asked this question either, but I think locality depends on how interconnected we are, the ability to ship goods and services and communicate it And so to some extent, we’ve as we’ve become more interconnected, it’s become less important than it was, I think.

Speaker 3

Any others? Oh, thanks, Chris.

Speaker 2

Um, I I guess I have another thought was So the ev just to clarify, so the evidence is that in the past when there has been a population collapse locally, in the absence of any kind of these radical productivity um technologies, th they just stopped using more advanced tech.

James Carroll

Right. And especially, like you said, there’s several cases where people were isolated in islands and sea levels have rose. and they were cut off from the larger community, and they had a highly advanced technological civilization, and their level of technology fell. They knew how to make things, but it was no longer worth it to make them. Because specialization in trade is actually what drove and made those high technologies economically feasible. And so it’s possible that that actually goes the other way, that we only invent these things. No one bothered to invent a sewing machine until there were enough people to make it worth inventing. So maybe the invention isn’t the primary driver. Maybe it was the population itself that made it worth inventing. And as soon as it’s worth inventing, someone invents it.

Speaker 4

And if that’s the case, it suggests. That suggests to me or that raises the question for me that’s also related to my earlier question about population density versus population size. It seems like one of the drivers of invention is scarcity. And that would suggest to me that population density is and resource scarcity are those are closely related. If you have an isolated population that doesn’t have to compete a lot. If they have fairly abundant resources, they have no real incentives for developing new technologies. But once you have resource scarcity and competition for that, it seems to drive innovation, which suggests that like we if we want to encourage innovation, we should also like encourage scenarios where scarcity will drive that. What what are your thoughts about? Some you have.

James Carroll

I don’t know. That’s an interesting question. And I’d have to think about it and look into it more both. Because it seems to me that there’s always a scarcity of time. Some And so we make these things as time savers, not just as material savers, right? So the sewing machine, it’s not about the materials, it’s about the time it saves you in making the garment. And so you need an abundance of materials, the metal, et cetera, to make the sewing machine. And that almost points in the opposite direction. From what you said. So I think there may be truth to what you said, but I think that it’s more complicated. And it’s complicated enough I have to think about it for a long time. Because I’m not sure.

Speaker 2

But I suppose like you’re saying, s something that may seem mundane to us today is actually could be fairly complicated, like a sewing machine or like a pencil. And actually requires dozens of different manufacturing processes to preexist.

James Carroll

So if anyone here hasn’t read iPencil, you can just Google iPencil and you’ll find it. which I assume is where you mentioned the pencil. I’m assuming you’ve read that. Yeah. So obviously eye opening document that everyone should read.

Speaker 2

And I guess a good proxy for population density is just communication and shipping lanes and everything. So technically, we don’t have more population density, at least in most of the world, than we did you know, fifty years ago, obviously in cities. But for the most part, cities have just been sprawling. And so the actual people per square foot hasn’t increased a whole lot. But Having the internet and having telephones and having trucks and interstate highways produces the same effect as a high population density for identifying levels of scarcity for specific industries.

James Carroll

Which may be the advantage or it may be the reason that living in space could solve some of these problems because We could raise our population size without raising our population density by having a whole other set of people living in another place, or two other places, or three other places. In theory, it’s possible, although it’ll be more difficult for them to physically trade in information space because they can trade very easily. And it may be possible that, that would drive technological innovation higher and higher As the population drives higher and higher without increasing population density on the Earth, at least that’s what I’m hoping.

Speaker 5

Yeah. All right. Thank you for having me.