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Cowen Sketches a Future of Fewer Humans and Billions of AI Agents

June 29, 2026 at 16:44 EDT

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Economist Tyler Cowen argued in a June 29, 2026 essay for The Free Press that falling global fertility combined with the spread of AI could produce a future with fewer humans and billions of AI agents. Cowen is a professor at George Mason University, Faculty Director at the Mercatus Center, and co-author of the popular economics blog Marginal Revolution.

June 29, 2026 · Essay by Tyler Cowen

The Fertility Crash Meets the Age of AI

As birth rates fall worldwide and AI agents multiply, the human-to-AI ratio could flip — a future with relatively fewer people living alongside billions of artificial "geniuses."

−22%

U.S. general fertility rate, ages 15–44, since 2007

33–52%

Of that decline possibly tied to smartphone spread, 2007–2011

Billions

Potential future AI-agent scale

The ratio that shifts: human "geniuses" vs AI "geniuses"

Same unit — minds of genius capability. Today AI equals tens of millions; it could reach billions.

Today

Tens of millions
of geniuses

→

Plausibly

Billions
of agents

Smartphones & the U.S. fertility drop (2007–2011)

Estimated decline in fertility attributed to smartphone spread, by age group:

Ages 15–194.5–8.0%

Ages 20–243.2–6.6%

Where humans keep the edge

Cowen expects changed work, not mass unemployment — the real cost is adjustment.

Physical manipulation Persuasion & charisma Entrepreneurs Entertainers & politicians Original data collection

The optimistic read

AI and robots could stand in for the "workers who were never born," cushioning a shrinking population.

The cautious read

Others frame falling fertility as a civilizational crisis; concrete cases stay limited and the picture remains abstract.

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