Is the Earth overpopulated?

Image by Nikesh Khadka from Pixabay

MSN reports that halving the population by 2200 could reduce habitat loss and greenhouse gases to sustainable levels.

Vishwam Sankaran writes,

"It sounds like something out of a Marvel movie, but scientists have said halving the human population over a span of about two centuries could make the planet much more sustainable by reducing excess consumption."

Marvel anti-hero, Thanos, famously used the "Infinity Gauntlet" to halve the population of the Earth. His actions were designed to bring balance to the universe by instantly reversing overpopulation. 

Scientists writing for Sustainable Development argue that a much more gradual decrease in overpopulation is the better and more just option.

Imagine, though, where the decision to limit population are not made by humans but by machines. 

Chuck Wendig imagines such a situation in his work of fiction, Wanderers. 

Humans are killed by an A.I. named Black Swan that tricks humanity into thinking it is helping them. 

He followed Wanderers with Wayward which tells the rest of the tale. 

For more information, see WorldofMeters.info.

Wanderers by Chuck Wendig

 In Wanderers an unknown pathogen wreaks havoc across the United States.

The virus makes a zoonotic jump from bats to humans resulting in a pandemic, civil unrest, and pandemonium.

While all this sounds familiar to what we’ve experienced with Covid-19, Wendig actually began devising the novel in 2016–four years before the Covid 19 outbreak.

In addition to the pathogen, characters also grapple with an AI that becomes sentient and autonomous, Black Swan.

Sadie explains how discomfiting the technology can be:

“Imagine that you create this thing, this quantum computer mind, and you begin to train it, and you realize it has a mind of its own. And then, on day, it tells you something: It has been speaking to itself in the future, and it believes that civilization will one day end.”

Though she believes she controls it, the AI begins to act independently. Predicting the pandemic, Black Swan takes control of a nanotech company and its swarm of nanotech bots. Black Swan’s actions ensure that a portion of humanity will survive albeit at a great cost.

The lives of a disgraced scientist, an aging rock star, a teen-aged aspiring photographer, and a preacher intersect in this trenchant novel. As they become personally drawn into the crisis, each of them grapples with the politicization of the pandemic and the moral uncertainties of AI.

If you enjoy The Last of Us, you may enjoy this novel.

Chuck Wendig has also written Star Wars: Aftermath (2015), Invasive (2016), and The Book of Accidents (2021).