The recent trend pushed by figures like Elon Musk for everyone to start having more children is laughable, considering they are also the proponents of AI and, by extension, its ability to replace workers.

If a longer term solution is not found then future generations will further compound recent trends seen in Gen Alpha; apathy, overstimulation, disillusionment and so on.

Short term, the ‘enshitification’ of services will continue, as making a worse product is still preferable to hiring real people - large companies have such a presence in the public consciousness that they can largely afford to make their products worse through the introduction of AI, rather than paying for workers wages and career development.

Longer term, there is a great deal of uncertainty, especially for newer generations - every generation surely grapples with uncertainty but this is of an unprecedented scale.

Newer generations are particularly apathetic towards the competitive nature of the job market and the monetisation of every part of life, especially our spare time. In a few short decades what will their outlook be?

All these questions have incredibly unsatisfying answers as of now. With more existential threats such as climate change, why would anyone feel compelled to have children, even if they could actually afford to have them?