The Perplexing Rise of Antinatalism in Silicon Valley

Most of us are aware that pronatalism is popular within Silicon Valley. But there's a new kind of antinatalism that's catching on, too! In this article, I give it a name: replacement antinatalism.

Some useful — but not required — background for this article can be found in my 3-part series on Silicon Valley pro-extinctionism.

The word “antinatalism” was introduced in the early 2000s to describe the ethical view that procreation is morally wrong. There are several reasons one might accept antinatalism:

1. Philosophical pessimism: the world is a very bad place, and hence it’s wrong to bring people into this world.

2. The harm-benefit asymmetry: David Benatar argues that birth is always a net harm, and since it’s wrong to cause someone harm, we should not engage in (what he calls) “baby-making.”

3. Ecological considerations: humanity is systematically destroying the biosphere and raising children has a huge carbon footprint. Hence, for the sake of the natural world, we should stop having children.

The vast majority of antinatalists are also pro-extinctionists: by refusing to have children, the human population will (and should) gradually decline until no one is left.

But there’s a brand new kind of antinatalism that’s emerged over the past few years, and which no one has yet named. It’s become quite popular within Silicon Valley, alongside its ideological antithesis: pronatalism, which says that we (especially “high-IQ” white people) should have as many children as possible. Elon Musk is a pronatalist, and has 14 children so far (that we know of).

Let’s call this new kind of antinatalism: replacement antinatalism. Let’s call the kind of antinatalism mentioned above: traditional antinatalism. And, for the sake of clarity, let’s call pronatalism of the sort espoused by Musk: biological pronatalism.

What’s fascinating is the parallel rise of biological pronatalism and replacement antinatalism within Silicon Valley in recent years. My aim here is to clarify this phenomenon, and explain how both of these views are compatible with the general “digital eschatology” that nearly everyone in the Valley embraces, according to which the future is digital rather than biological, dominated by artificial or digital beings rather than biological humans like us.

Traditional Vs. Replacement Antinatalism

Replacement antinatalism is similar to traditional antinatalism in that both claim that we should stop having children, because procreation is morally wrong. However, the underlying reasons for making this claim are diametrically opposed, as are the corresponding visions of the future once our species has ceased to exist.

Consider the following quote from an interview with Jaron Lanier, a virtual-reality pioneer and critic of technology who’s been a fixture of Silicon Valley for many decades:

Increasingly, a lot of [AI researchers in Palo Alto] believe that it would be good to wipe out people and that the AI future would be a better one, and that we should wear a disposable temporary container for the birth of AI. … Just the other day I was at a lunch in Palo Alto and there were some young AI scientists there who were saying that they would never have a “bio baby” because as soon as you have a “bio baby,” you get the “mind virus” of the [biological] world. And when you have the mind virus, you become committed to your human baby. But it’s much more important to be committed to the AI of the future. And so to have human babies is fundamentally unethical.

Hence, one argument that replacement antinatalists adduce in support of their view is that having biological children can lead one to become attached to the biological world, which can thus distract from or interfere with one’s commitment (as an AI researcher) to fulfilling the mission of realizing a digital eschatology — i.e., establishing a world dominated by digital posthumans.

But there are other possible reasons, too, such as:

• One might expect that once AGI arrives, it will replace humanity by destroying it. Some people in Silicon Valley are explicitly okay with this, including a former xAI employee Michael Druggan. Hence, what’s the point of having biological children if they’re just going to die before reaching adulthood?

Two Types of “Human Extinction”

The second major difference between traditional and replacement antinatalism concerns their respective visions of the future once our species is gone, as noted above.

Traditional antinatalists imagine our species dying out and there being no future generations, whereas replacement antinatalists imagine our species dying out and there still being future generations — in the form of digital posthumans like AGIs, uploaded minds, etc.

This is just another way of saying that traditional antinatalists aim for final human extinction, whereas replacement antinatalists align with the view that we should aim for terminal extinction without final extinction. What does that mean, exactly?

Terminal extinction = the disappearance of our species, full stop.

Final extinction = the disappearance of our species without leaving behind any successors (e.g., posthumans) to take our place.

These are distinct scenarios. For example, if we were to create a population of AGIs next year and then die out, we will have undergone terminal but not final extinction, since those AGIs would be our successors. But if we were to die out next year without having created such successors, we will have undergone final extinction. This is an annoyingly academic distinction (I admit!!), but it’s also absolutely crucial for making sense of the family of worldviews that have become pervasive within Silicon Valley, and which are driving the current race to build AGI.

In sum: traditional antinatalists want us to stop procreating and they want our species to die out without leaving behind any successors (final extinction). This makes sense because if you believe that existence is full of suffering, birth is always a net harm, and the only way to save the natural world is to get rid of creatures like us, you’ll be inclined to say that final extinction is the only guaranteed solution to these problems.

In contrast, replacement antinatalists want us to stop procreating precisely because we should focus instead on bringing about a world ruled and run by our posthuman successors: advanced AI systems. There should be future generations, but those future generations should consist of beings radically different from contemporary humans. Once these beings arrive, then our species should die out (terminal extinction without final extinction).

Making Sense of Biological Pronatalism in Silicon Valley

This leads to a second issue: how does one make sense of the simultaneous rise of biological pronatalism and replacement antinatalism among Silicon Valley folks who almost all accept a digital eschatology, whereby the future is dominated by digital or artificial beings rather than biological humans? If the future is digital, then why do pronatalists think we should have more biological babies right now?

There is a good explanation for this. Consider Musk again. He claims that only 1% of all “intelligence” on Earth will soon be biological in nature. The other 99% will be artificial. Yet he keeps having biological children. Why? I think there are two main reasons:

1. Musk, like other megalomaniacs in Silicon Valley, believes he’s a super-genius. He also (it seems) accepts a hereditarian view of “intelligence” according to which “IQ” is heritable and largely genetic. Hence, by having more children, he’s increasing the frequency of “high-IQ” genes in the population. This matters because the more “geniuses” there are, the faster “progress” in science and technology will unfold. Since science and technology are the keys that will unlock a “utopian” future among the stars, Musk is indirectly catalyzing the realization of this future through his offspring. More high-IQ children = a greater chance of reaching the stars someday.

2. Unlike some pro-extinctionists in Silicon Valley, Musk doesn’t want autonomous AGIs to replace humanity through some involuntary means — e.g., an omnicidal mass-murder event. (This is precisely why he fired Michael Druggan from xAI: Druggan is okay with AGI committing omnicide, while Musk isn’t.) Rather, Musk seems to hold a more Kurzweilian view according to which biological humans living today and born in the near future will merge with the machines. That is to say, at least some future posthumans should take the form of human-technology cyborgs, as opposed to wholly autonomous AGIs along the lines of some future version of ChatGPT (e.g., GPT-20, which achieves superintelligent levels of competence).

This is how the vision of digital eschatology is compatible with both replacement antinatalism and biological pronatalism. The biological pronatalists would say that they’re actually helping to realize the digital future by having more children, since these children could contribute to the creation of posthumanity and also become one of those posthumans themselves. The replacement antinatalists would contend that, in fact, the best way to contribute to realizing the digital future is by not getting distracted by raising children, who might very well just be slaughtered in the future if AGIs take over by force (which, again, some Silicon Valley pro-extinctionists are perfectly fine with).

Both biological pronatalism and replacement antinatalism can be seen as responses to digital eschatology. Both groups affirm this eschatology, but whereas one says the best response is to make more biological babies, the other says that the best response is to remain childless. Having children, on the latter view, is “fundamentally unethical” because it’s not the optimal way to realize this eschatology.

Conclusion

I’m writing this in part because numerous journalists have asked me:

If digital eschatology is so ubiquitous in Silicon Valley, why are there pronatalists? Isn’t the existence of these pronatalists in tension with the claim that digital eschatology is pervasive?

I hope this shows that it’s not. In the process, I have named a previously nameless phenomenon — replacement antinatalism — in hopes that giving this a name helps folks make better sense of the strange ideological currents flowing together and diverging in complex ways within the strange world of radical Silicon Valley ideologies.

Let me know what you think, though! Am I missing something? Have I explained these issues clearly enough? Replacement antinatalism will definitely be a major topic explored in my upcoming book, so your feedback is very much appreciated! :-)

Thanks so much for reading and I’ll see you on the other side!