People don’t have more children, civilization is going to crumble,” proclaimed Elon Musk from a Tesla factory late last year. As usual, he was treated as an oracle. Deepening the effect, he added, preposterously: Mark my words.”
Musk spoke his truth at a Wall Street Journal event while hyping his proposed Tesla bot, an android that performs grunt work. Only a bot army, he said, can meet the corporate need for laborers willing to work without rest, meals, or complaint. (Human dignity is a drag on profits.) But until the bots are up and running, Musk’s Squid Game still needs flesh-and-blood workers.
“The fundamental constraint is labor,” Musk said. "There are not enough people. I can’t emphasize this enough: There are not enough people. One of the biggest risks to civilization is the low birth rate.”
Musk tends to be an experimental talker, and he’s of course passionate about trolling; his utterances, like those of a Fed chair, don’t describe reality so much as create social fluctuations. To fact-check Musk’s statements, therefore, is to misunderstand their import. (Though, for the record, a United Nations study debunked his demographic math a week later.)
Still, Musk’s histrionics ("civilization is going to crumble”) and pomposity ("mark my words”) are intriguing because they uncannily echo the population hysterics of 50 years ago. With a key difference: The 1970s Nostradamuses were afraid of too many babies. Musk is afraid of too few.
This story is from the November 2022 edition of WIRED.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the November 2022 edition of WIRED.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
MOVE SLOWLY AND BUILD THINGS
EVERYTHING DEPENDS ON MICROCHIPS-WHICH MEANS TOO MUCH DEPENDS ON TAIWAN. TO REBUILD CHIP MANUFACTURING AT HOME, THE U.S. IS BETTING BIG ON AN AGING TECH GIANT. BUT AS MONEY AND COLOSSAL INFRASTRUCTURE FLOW INTO OHIO, DOES TOO MUCH DEPEND ON INTEL?
FOLLOW THAT CAR
CHASING A ROBOTAXI FOR HOURS AND HOURS IS WEIRD AND REVELATORY, AND BORING, AND JEALOUSY-INDUCING. BUT THE DRIVERLESS WORLD IS COMING FOR ALL OF US. SO GET IN AND BUCKLE UP.
REVENGE OF THE SOFTIES
FOR YEARS, PEOPLE COUNTED MICROSOFT OUT. THEN SATYA NADELLA TOOK CONTROL. AS THE COMPANY TURNS 50, IT'S MORE RELEVANT-AND SCARIER-THAN EVER.
THE NEW COLD WARRIOR
CHINA IS RACING TO UNSEAT THE UNITED STATES AS THE WORLD'S TECHNOLOGICAL SUPERPOWER
CALIFORNIA DREAMIN'
KINDRED MOTORWORKS VW BUS - Despite being German, the VW T1 Microbus is as Californian as the Grateful Dead.
THE INSIDE SCOOP ON DESSERT TECH
A lab in Denmark works to make the perfect ice cream. Bring on the fava beans?
CONFESSIONS OF A HINGE POWER DATER
BY HIS OWN estimation, JB averages about three dates a week. \"It's gonna sound wild,\" he confesses, \"but I've probably been on close to 200 dates in the last year and a half.\"
THE WATCHFUL INTELLIGENCE OF TIM COOK
APPLE INTELLIGENCE IS NOT A PLAY ON \"AI,\" THE CEO INSISTS. BUT IT IS HIS PLAY FOR RELEVANCE IN ALL AREAS, FROM EMAIL AUTO-COMPLETES TO APPS THAT SAVE LIVES.
COPYCATS (AND DOGS)
Nine years ago, a pair of freshly weaned British longhair kittens boarded a private plane in Virginia and flew to their new home in Europe.
STAR POWER
The spirit of Silicon Valley lives onat this nuclear fusion facility's insane, top-secret opening ceremony.