A useful perspective on human history can be the the relationship between the ruling elite and the ruled people. The active players and the tools on board. This is not black and white distinction and is intrinsically offensive, but yet a valid one. What is an urging concern is that for the first time, population growth is no longer in the interest of the elites. Actually, the world is grossly overpopulated for the needs of the powerful players and hence the vast majority of global population is in immediate survival risk.
The prehistoric groups of hunter gatherers conquered the world and had driven to an extinction a majority of all big animals. The groups remained relatively small, mainly due to administrative reasons, yet the tribe chiefs were interested in the growth of their tribe, even if it will have to split – it will remain a relatively friendly one.
The agricultural revolution allowed existence of larger social organizations. The kings and emperors devised complicated systems to support an army of professional fighters. The more fertile land was under the control of the king, the more knights will the kingdom have and the better will be it’s survival chances. Oscillation in population could shake the system stability, but generally, a small and constant population overpressure would allow the kingdom to grow by conquer. The loyalty of the peasant was not very important, they were as much a voiceless resource as the potatoes field they were growing.
The gunpowder revolution (and arguably just before it – the crossbow) made every peasant a warier. Suddenly the shear amount of loyal subjects became very important. The nations were invented and the masses were indoctrinated into this new identity by the means of the printing press and later – by the rest of the mass media. Since then the nation states play the power games of which alliance has more more loyal soldiers. Slight modifications to the warfare in form of tanks and airplanes were allowed, but significant change of game – nuclear, bio and chemical weapons are largely marginalized. I would claim that the actual reason is not the care for the human life per se, but the survival instinct of the ruling elites.
The industrial revolution strengthened the need of the ruling elites in their people – the land per se importance was reduced but the sheer number of working hands became important to be able to produce more powerful weapons. The information revolution seems as disturbing the national borders, increasing the globalization, but the new elites of the network profit from the size and complexity of the network, hence still are interested yet in population growth.
Now we are facing the autonomous robot revolution, making the majority of population obsolete. Long before the General Artificial Intelligence, an insect level intelligence will suffice for a complete path from mining the metals to fabricating and deploying killer robots – the ruling elites will need almost no humans in their power struggles. Aside from a handful of scientists and engineers and maybe some essential factory workers, the value of human life will diminish drastically. By simple Darwinism, the more efficient actor will win the war game and if getting rid of humans means efficiency, so be it.
Unlike the nuclear and the biological weapons, the development of this technology does not require enormous resources and can be done quietly by non-state actors. It cannot be easily banned. The new warlords might grow out of robotics corporations rather than out of the nation states of today. What exactly will happen to all the people not belonging to the warlord elite and their robotic companies? Unemployment, poverty, inequality, slums, hunger, diseases, misfunctioning states – all only too familiar.
This scenario is not the end of civilization, despite leaving 99% of population behind. Yet, what can the 99% do? Not everybody can become essential in this new balance of power. If deep space exploration would be possible, the best solution would be to immediately colonize 100 planets. Breeding humans for talent hunt is a good and viable strategy to the new warlords, but it would still leave 98% of the population behind – there are simply too many people.
A technological solution that might work is to make the cost of a living human very very small, essentially not competing for war resources – not energy wise, not minerals, not space , humans must become irrelevant to the warlords. For that the human sustainability technology must change drastically. The energy must become very cheap, otherwise every agricultural land will be utilized for biofuel for the drones. The infrastructure must be of abundant material (plastic). Food and other products production and utilization loops short and local – not relying on a global transportation infrastructure. The world will not be for the simple people, it will merely tolerate their existence, just like throughout the major part of human history.
A political solution is war robots moratorium, in the absurd logic of securing the place of the flesh and blood human soldier in the battle. Yes humans will continue to die in violent conflicts, but they will ensure their necessity as the warier caste. This has some chance for political action now, as in the transition period between human wars and robot wars there is the human killing robots period, which is considered to be highly immoral.
