This Birthrate Chart Will Blow Your Mind
How AI can help us reverse the quiet collapse of human potential
I haven’t been able to stop staring at this chart. It’s simple, almost mundane. Just a gently declining curve. But it might be one of the most critical and terrifying charts of our time.
Because it shows something staggering: We’ve already passed the peak. The number of babies born on Earth each year is falling. And if the UN projections hold, that decline is only accelerating.
By the end of this century, there will be 30 to 40 million fewer babies born annually.
Let that sink in.
It’s easy to think of the year 2100 as a distant horizon. But it’s not. My daughter is four. She’ll be 79 in 2100. If she chooses to have children, they’ll grow up in a world where birth is no longer the default. Where societies shrink instead of grow. Where playgrounds are quieter. Where siblings are rarer. Where life feels… thinner.
We are heading into a world with fewer children.
Which means less joy.
Less chaos.
Less renewal.
Less future.
The implications are within our lifetime and our influence.
This global decline in birth rates is a slow-motion collapse of possibility. What’s at stake?
1/ A slowing economic engine.
Fewer workers. Fewer consumers. Greater pressure on younger generations to support aging populations. Growth becomes harder. Collapse becomes easier.
2/ The innovation engine dims.
Fewer young minds mean fewer breakthroughs, fewer rebellions, fewer dreams of something radically better.
3/ The human spirit wanes.
A world with fewer babies is a world that, in some deep way, has stopped believing in itself.
We’ve built an entire civilization around productivity, efficiency, and consumption. But we’re forgetting to preserve the source of it all: life.
What if birth is the new moonshot?
For the past century, we’ve waged war on death. Now, maybe it’s time to fight for life.
What if the most revolutionary thing we can do in the 21st century is make it easier (emotionally, physically, economically, culturally) to bring new life into the world?
That means:
Reinventing fertility care, so IVF and egg preservation are accessible, personalized, and stigma-free.
Redesigning childcare systems so that raising children doesn’t require financial sacrifice or professional stagnation.
Rethinking economic incentives so that families are supported rather than penalized.
Embracing future-forward technologies, like artificial wombs, longevity-linked fertility solutions, and real-time hormonal diagnostics.
Restoring a cultural reverence for parenthood, as a bold, creative act, not a burden
Can AI help us flatten the curve?
If we approach this right, the AI era isn’t the death knell of birth. It could be the spark that could reignite it.
Look, I’m an entrepreneur. I can’t help but ask: What do we build now?
So what if we could build…
AI Fertility Copilots
LLMs trained on millions of fertility journeys could help women and couples navigate their path with precision: cycle tracking, hormone interpretation, embryo grading, treatment options, and emotional support.
→ The category is wide open.
AI-Native Healthcare Platforms
Personalized reproductive health tools could offer diagnostics, predictions, and care plans far beyond what fragmented systems deliver today.
→ From endometriosis to egg freezing decisions, AI can collapse complexity into clarity.
Artificial Wombs + AI Monitoring
The development of ex utero gestation will rely on real-time feedback systems - think AI to monitor fetal development, manage conditions, and optimize outcomes.
→ A birth revolution where biology meets code.
AI-Powered Childcare and Companionship
Imagine intelligent, loving, always-on copilots for new parents. Tools that help with sleep training, emotional resilience, and developmental insights.
→ To amplify care, not to replace humans.
The future will be shaped by the tools we create, by platforms, by belief systems, by stories, not just by policies or incentives.
We should build startups that make fertility care radically affordable and intelligent. Platforms that help parents navigate the journey with AI as their co-pilot. Consumer electronics that enable better reproductive health tracking and emotional wellness. Systems that lower the cost and burden of caregiving. And cultural movements that reconnect society with the joy of birth.
That chart above blows my mind because it reveals something so subtle, so slow, and so terrifying: That, in a way, the future is getting smaller.
But it doesn’t have to be.
We can change that curve. We can write a different story, one filled with noise, with laughter, with siblings, with mess, with miracles.
We can build a world where bringing life into the world is not an economic liability, but a sacred act of optimism.
A world where fewer people ask “Can we afford a child?”
And more people ask, “What kind of future are we giving them?”
So we need to flatten the curve.
And it starts now.
With belief,
Yon
👋 Hello! My mission with Beyond with Yon is to ignite awareness, inspire dialogue, and drive innovation to tackle humanity's greatest existential challenges. Join me on the journey to unf**ck the future and transform our world.