One of Meta's top executives has said impending "population collapse" means AI-driven productivity gains are "desperately" needed to support society. Alex Schultz, chief data officer of Facebook's parent company, made the remarks at the FT's Future of AI summit on Wednesday.
Schultz said falling birth rates meant the world would have "a lot fewer people 50 years from now" and that the world "isn't thinking hard enough" about population collapse. "We desperately need more productivity," he said, asking how society would care for elderly people.
The global population is expected to peak as early as 2064, while the working population is set to shrink more quickly. Schultz's comments come as Meta races to compete with OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, having spent billions on AI ambitions. Meta announced plans to raise an additional $95bn to fuel its spending last week.
Schultz said AI was already "accelerating" software engineers' work and saving "a tonne of time" for lawyers. Within Meta, more than 10 per cent of tasks in its data warehouse were now resolved by agents without human input. He pushed back against fears of widespread unemployment, saying "having tools doesn't eliminate jobs, it just changes them."
Source: Financial Times Companies · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing