Can Artificial Intelligence Solve China's Demographic Crisis?

Over the past decade or so, "The Low-Fertility Trap," a hypothesis put forth by Wolfgang Lutz, Vegard Skirbekk and Maria Rita Testa, respectively Austrian, Norwegian and Italian scholars, has worried many countries facing the risks of an aging population. The theory suggests that when a country's birth rate is lower than 1.5, three self-reinforcing mechanisms -- demographic, sociological and economic -- can work, if unchecked, towards a downward spiral in its future fertility. Yet, while people are still debating whether China is up against doomed demographics, a few have noticed that artificial intelligence (AI) is creating an ever faster, more disruptive and stronger force than that of the industrial revolution -- and could completely overturn China's demographic outlook. Industrialization and low birth rates are two sides of the same coin. For a long time, people have thought that modernization is what alters people's concept of birth, rather than more specifically, industrialization.