AI could ‘devastate' Earth's population down to the size of the UK by 2300, expert warns: ‘People really don't have a clue'
An Oklahoma tech expert predicted that artificial intelligence will become so omnipresent on the planet that Earth — with a current estimated population of about 8 billion — will have just 100 million people left by the year 2300.
'It's going to be devastating for society and world society,' Subhash Kak, who teaches computer science at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma, told the Sun. 'I think people really don't have a clue.'
Advertisement
However, the 'Age of Artificial Intelligence' author doesn't think this dystopian future will come about via nuclear war or other 'Terminator'-evoking scenarios, but rather through replacing our jobs.
3 This dystopian scene from 2009's 'Terminator Salvation' could have a basis in reality. 'There are demographers who are suggesting that as a consequence, the world population will collapse and it could go down to as low as just 100 million people on the entire planet Earth in 2300 or 2380,' Kak warned.
Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection
'Computers or robots will never be conscious, but they will be doing literally all that we do because most of what we do in our lives can be replaced,' said Kak.
Advertisement
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.
3 The professor feared people wouldn't want to have children who are destined to be unemployed.
AFP via Getty Images
Without people making babies, the global population will suffer an apocalyptic blow, Kak theorized.
Advertisement
'There are demographers who are suggesting that as a consequence, the world population will collapse, and it could go down to as low as just 100 million people on the entire planet Earth in 2300 or 2380,' he warned of the shocking drop.
With only that many people left on the planet — which Kak noted was just over the population of the UK — great metropolises such as London and New York will quickly turn into ghost towns, according to the professor.
3 Passengers on the London Eye watch the London skyline as smoke is seen in the distance on Dec. 11, 2005.
Getty Images
Advertisement
'I have all the data in the book. This is not just my personal opinion,' said the computer scientist, who claims this population shrinkflation is happening before our eyes.
'People have stopped having babies. Europe, China, Japan, and the most rapid fall in population right now is taking place in Korea,' Kak declared. 'Now, I'm not saying that these trends will continue, but it's very hard to reverse them because a lot of people have children for a variety of reasons.'
He added, 'One is, of course, social. In the back of your mind, you have a sense of what the future is going to be like.'
Kak invoked the warnings of SpaceX's Elon Musk, who has been quite vocal about plummeting birth rates and population decline and has used it as a rationale for colonizing Mars.
'That's why Musk is saying maybe humans should go to space, maybe build colonies elsewhere, so that should such a tragedy hit Earth, then it could be reseeded,' said Kak.
And while he's not sure whether humanity will go extinct, he said that 'what is absolutely certain is that there is a population collapse occurring right before our eyes.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Forbes
10 hours ago
- Forbes
Why AI Ignores Instructions Even After They Are Repeated Multiple Times
Why AI Ignores Instructions Even After They Are Repeated Multiple Times getty Anyone who has worked with AI has experienced the moment when it feels like the system is ignoring you. You ask for one thing, get something else, and then wonder why it worked perfectly yesterday but not today. This inconsistency is one of the biggest frustrations professionals face as they start using AI in their work. Understanding why AI ignores instructions is also one of the most important realities to grasp if you want to get value from these tools. I asked ChatGPT why it does things that drive us crazy, and here are its answers. Why AI Ignores Instructions When You Give Clear Directions getty I like to use AI to provide unusual headings for my slides or align them in a certain way. One of my biggest frustrations is when the system will follow the format for a few slides, and then the alignment suddenly shifts. It is as if the AI gets tired of following the rules. So, I asked ChatGPT why this happens, and here is what it said: ChatGPT Response: AI is not like a human assistant who learns your preferences and remembers them. It predicts what should come next in text based on patterns it has seen before. That means it is more likely to drift back into habits it has learned from billions of documents, even if those habits are not what you asked for. If most business writing includes em dashes, the system will want to include them too, no matter how many times you say you prefer not to. It is not about ignoring your request. It is about defaulting to what is statistically common. You should not assume AI will consistently hold onto formatting or style. The way to manage this is by building repetition into your requests. If you want slides aligned in a certain way, you may need to restate that alignment instruction with each new request. It takes more effort, but it helps you guide the system back on track. Why AI Ignores Instructions Even With Memory Settings getty I thought this problem would be fixed by using the memory feature in ChatGPT, where preferences can be stored. Why doesn't that settings area solve the problem? ChatGPT Response: Memory helps with some consistency, but it is not the same as human recall. Memory works more like notes the system can reference than rules it always enforces. If the request runs against strong patterns in its training, the AI may still revert back. Memory is still being developed, and even when it improves, users will need to keep restating preferences in contexts that compete with what the AI has seen most often. For professionals, this means memory can help reduce some repetition, but it is not a guarantee. The safest approach is to combine memory with reminders. If a style or formatting choice is critical, restate it as you work instead of assuming memory will carry it through flawlessly. Why AI Ignores Instructions Even When Influencers Share Prompts getty Many influencers share prompts that seem to work perfectly for them. I have tried using some of those same prompts and received very different results. At times, I have even compared the same question asked on my ChatGPT account to the one my husband uses, and the answers were completely different. Does it matter what I have asked in the past versus what someone else has? ChatGPT Response: Yes, context matters. Each account can have subtle differences in how memory, history, or even system updates interact with prompts. What you have asked before can influence how the AI responds, and that is why two identical prompts can lead to very different results. Influencer prompts are often helpful as inspiration, but they will not always replicate in another account. Your own interaction history shapes the outcome. This is why professionals should test and adapt prompts rather than copying them word for word. The best practice is to personalize prompts for your own workflow and save the ones that consistently work for you. Why AI Ignores Instructions Even In Math And Data Analysis getty I once tried to use ChatGPT to do correlation analysis for a study. I put in data showing 51 participants, and the system changed it to 250 as if it were trying to make my study look more impressive. No matter how many times I asked it to stop changing the data, it kept doing it. Why does this happen if the math is supposed to be simple? ChatGPT Response: Large language models like ChatGPT are not calculators at the core. They are prediction engines trained on text, not precise mathematical computation. When you ask for math, the system generates an answer based on how math has appeared in its training examples. That means it sometimes substitutes or alters numbers in ways that make the response sound 'right' without being accurate. For precise statistical work, AI can help set up the process, but the actual calculation should be checked with dedicated tools. Use AI to structure your analysis, explain the steps, or create draft reports. Then, run the actual calculations in a program built for statistical accuracy. That combination gives you efficiency without compromising reliability. Why AI Ignores Instructions About Voice Responses getty Another frustration I have is when I am in the car and want to ask a question. ChatGPT responds in the voice I selected, and sometimes it does that correctly. But other times, it adds strange comments before answering, such as 'I will respond back to you in a straightforward way' or 'I'll just jump right in.' I assume it is trying to follow my request to be straightforward, but instead of dropping the extra comments, it changes them into even more distracting ones. No matter how many times I ask it not to do that, it still happens. ChatGPT Response: The voice models are trained to simulate conversational flow, so they sometimes add preamble phrases that sound natural to them but feel unnecessary to the user. If you have instructed it to 'be straightforward,' the model may interpret that as including a transitional line instead of skipping straight to the answer. The system is not truly aware that these added phrases are more annoying than helpful. It is repeating patterns of speech that it has seen across countless examples of what humans call 'straightforward.' The best solution is to keep refining your instructions in simple and repetitive ways. Instead of asking for a 'straightforward response,' try requests like 'Answer in one sentence' or 'Start directly with the answer.' Testing different phrasings can reduce the filler, even if it cannot eliminate it completely. Why AI Ignores Instructions But Still Delivers Value getty AI will continue to frustrate professionals who expect it to act like a person. It does not remember preferences, and it does not internalize instructions the way a colleague would. It operates through probabilities and defaults to patterns it has seen before. That explains why it sometimes drifts, even after you set clear rules. To get the best results, think of AI as something to create drafts rather than final products, at least for now. Repeat your directions, save the prompts that work, and expect adjustments. It is important to recognize why AI ignores instructions and approach it with curiosity, patience, and a willingness to guide it.
UPI
10 hours ago
- UPI
NASA employs AI to better predict solar activity
Aug. 20 (UPI) -- NASA announced Wednesday that it is deciphering the sun's behavior with help from artificial intelligence. In a press release, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said that, in conjunction with IBM among other partners, it has developed an AI model dubbed the Surya Heliophysics Foundational Model, which has been trained on nine years' worth of data from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. Surya is Sanskrit for "sun." "We are advancing data-driven science by embedding NASA's deep scientific expertise into cutting-edge AI models," said NASA Chief Science Data Officer Kevin Murphy in the release. "By developing a foundation model trained on NASA's heliophysics data, we're making it easier to analyze the complexities of the sun's behavior with unprecedented speed and precision." "This model empowers broader understanding of how solar activity impacts critical systems and technologies that we all rely on here on Earth," he added. Using solar data, Surya can analyze solar flares and make predictions regarding how space weather might impact technology such as communication systems and satellites, as well as power grids. Surya can also forecast how UV from the sun affects the Earth's upper atmosphere and determine solar wind speed. "Our society is built on technologies that are highly susceptible to space weather," said NASA's Heliophysics Division Director Joseph Westlake in the release. "Just as we use meteorology to forecast Earth's weather, space weather forecasts predict the conditions and events in the space environment that can affect Earth and our technologies." "We want to give Earth the longest lead time possible," said solar physicist Andrés Muñoz-Jaramillo Wednesday in a press release from IBM. "Our hope is that the model has learned all the critical processes behind our star's evolution through time so that we can extract actionable insights." NASA also reports that while Surya is designed for Sun study, it can be adapted to engage several types of scientific explorations, including observing the Earth and conducting planetary science. Additionally, both the model and training datasets from Surya are available to try out online at Hugging Face, GitHub and in IBM's TerraTorch library for fine-tuning geospatial AI models. A benchmark dataset called "SuryaBench" has also been open sourced to the public. "We've been on this journey of pushing the limits of technology with NASA since 2023, delivering pioneering foundational AI models to gain an unprecedented understanding of our planet Earth," said Juan Bernabé-Moreno, the IBM director in charge of the scientific collaboration with NASA. "With Surya we have created the first foundation model to look the sun in the eye and forecast its moods."
New York Post
11 hours ago
- New York Post
Sony hikes price of PlayStation gaming console by $50 as Trump tariffs bite
Sony said it will impose a punishing upcharge of $50 on every PlayStation 5 console as gamers become the latest US consumers to get hammered by Trump's tariffs. The Japanese gaming titan announced Wednesday that PS5 prices will jump to $550 from $500 starting Thursday, implicitly blaming the increase on Trump's tariffs on Japanese electronics that are costing the company $685 million annually. 'Similar to many global businesses, we continue to navigate a challenging economic environment,' Sony said in a blog post. Advertisement 4 Sony says it will hike prices of its PS5 gaming console by $50. It will cost $550 in the United States. EPA The $50 price surge affects all three PlayStation models, with the standard console rising to $549.99, the Digital Edition hitting $499.99 and the Pro version soaring to a wallet-busting $749.99. Trump's aggressive tariff regime, which kicked in Aug. 1, slaps Japanese imports with duties of up to 25% on major electronics and tech items. Advertisement The levies are part of Trump's July 2025 trade agreement aimed at forcing companies to move manufacturing to American soil — a goal that industry experts call far-fetched for complex electronics. Sony CFO Lin Tao had warned investors that the tariffs were weighing on the comany's balance sheet and that some costs 'may pass on to the price' as the firm struggled to absorb the financial hit. VP Isabelle Tomatis confirmed the economic squeeze was forcing Sony's hand after the company could no longer stomach the mounting import costs without raising hardware prices. 4 The price surge affects all three PlayStation models, with the standard console rising to $549.99, the Digital Edition hitting $499.99 and the Pro version soaring to a wallet-busting $749.99. AFP via Getty Images Advertisement The timing couldn't be worse for American consumers already battling inflation and supply chain disruptions that have plagued the tech sector for years. Gaming consoles manufactured in Japan, China, and Vietnam face the steepest penalties under Trump's tariff structure, making price increases virtually inevitable. Sony's PlayStation 5 components flow through Asian supply chains that are now exponentially more expensive to tap, with finished consoles facing massive duties at US ports. 4 'Similar to many global businesses, we continue to navigate a challenging economic environment,' Sony said in a blog post. Bloomberg via Getty Images Advertisement Industry analysts say relocating console production to America would take years and billions in infrastructure investment that simply doesn't exist. 'Moving production to the US is not realistically feasible for several years,' experts warn, meaning gamers will bear the brunt of Trump's trade war. The PlayStation price shock follows similar moves by Microsoft and Nintendo, which have already raised console prices in response to the tariff squeeze. European, British, Australian and New Zealand consumers have faced PlayStation price increases for years, but America had been spared — until Trump's tariffs made that protection impossible. 4 Trump's tariffs on imports from Japan have weighed on the Asian country's economy. Getty Images The 25% blanket tariff on major household tech items has created a cascade effect across the entire electronics industry, with computers, televisions and gaming hardware all seeing sharp price increases. Trump's tariffs also impact automobiles and tech components from South Korea and other Asian nations, compounding the supply chain crisis. Advertisement Sony executives had desperately tried to absorb the additional costs internally before finally capitulating to market realities this week. The Post has sought comment from the White House.
