Replacement anxiety

Will "they" replace us, or will "it" replace us?

A year ago, I speculated that there might be some sort of deep underlying link between two broad trends of the 21st century—the rise of artificial intelligence and the collapse of fertility. In retrospect, I believe I missed the most important connection—replacement anxiety:

1. The fear among some white people that their race will be replaced by non-whites, due to trends in fertility and immigration.

2. The fear among workers that their jobs will be replaced by AI.

3. The fear among US policymakers than China will replace us as the world’s hegemon. This fear is linked to both China’s large population, and its success in AI research.

4. The fear among Taiwanese people that their democracy will be replaced with the PRC’s autocracy. The Taiwanese see TSMC as a sort of “silicon shield”.

5. The fear among older conservatives that our Christian culture will be replaced by a younger generation that welcomes gay marriage, trans rights, polyamory and rejects organized religion. These cultural practices are often seen as being linked to Bay Area rationalism.

6. The fear that often difficult to deal with human spouses will be replaced by compliant artificial spouses.

I’m sure that one could find numerous other examples.

Throughout history, older people have often worried that their way of life was disappearing, as society evolved toward a new set of cultural practices. But the world has never seen anything like AI—or more specifically what AI is expected to eventually be capable of doing. And the world has never seen anything like the enormous (and somewhat uneven) decline in fertility that is currently underway. In the past, high birth rates assured that populations bounced back from even a devastating plague or famine.

In a sense, the replacement of humans with machines may have already begun. In my view, the best theory for the decline in fertility is “it’s the phones”. People talk about how specific aspects of Korean society have pushed fertility down to 0.80, but what’s caused fertility in places like Chile, Thailand and Poland to fall close to 1.0? No country specific factor like “more tall apartment buildings” can fully explain what is going on all over the world. That is, nothing except a truly global cultural change—like spending all your time mesmerized by entertainment on your phone. And while fertility has been falling for decades, the truly dramatic decline is associated with the smartphone.

[As an aside, only 9% of Americans owned a TV set in 1950. That increased to more than 50% in 1955. The birth rate in the US peaked in 1957, and then declined sharply for several decades. Before it was the phone, it was the TV. Stop inventing things that are more fun than children!!]

Because the decline in fertility is greater in more developed countries, residents increasingly fear being overwhelmed by immigrants from poorer parts of the world. A similar anxiety is developing with respect to AI, especially among more populist voters. Here’s the FT:

“We support Trump’s efforts to win the AI race, but we don’t want to do it at the expense of human dignity,” said Byron Keelin, head of Freedom Principle, a rightwing group that this summer rallied its members to oppose the president’s attempt to ban state legislation. “We are trying to protect citizens from being taken advantage of by big corporations.”

In Washington, Josh Hawley, Missouri’s senior senator and one of Trump’s strongest supporters, has warned the AI revolution is “working against the working man, his liberty and his worth”. He has introduced federal legislation that would force AI companies to verify users’ ages and ban them from providing virtual “companions” to minors. . . .

Residents of Independence, meanwhile, feel whiplashed by the pace of change.

Garrett said: “I’ve listened to [Elon Musk] talk about . . . how quickly it is happening and I don’t know, I just think sometimes things need to be slowed down a little bit, put some thought into it.”

Replacement anxiety occurs along many different dimensions. Much of the NIMBY movement in America is motivated by a desire to preserve the character of specific residential neighborhoods, with single family homeowners especially leery of replacement by lower income renters. But AI and fertility decline seem like special cases, likely to supercharge replacement anxiety in a wide range of areas. I suspect that these two issues will be the dominant factors driving political change during the 21st century.

Photo by Andy Kelly on Unsplash

PS. Off topic, but did you notice that the US trade deficit was virtually unchanged in 2025 (falling from $903.5 billion to $901.5 billion):

By country, the shortfall with China narrowed sharply — reaching about $202 billion, the smallest in more than 20 years and a reflection of the higher tariffs Trump put on Chinese imports. Trade has instead been largely rerouted through other countries like Mexico and Vietnam, where deficits widened to respective records.

Meantime, the gap with Taiwan last year widened to a record $146.8 billion, while the annual shortfall with Canada narrowed.

Meanwhile, total employment in manufacturing declined by 108,000 during 2025. Investment in new factories also declined. Interested readers may wish to revisit one my post-Liberation Day posts, where I discussed misconceptions about trade balances:

And contrary to the Treasury claim, tariffs reduce both imports and exports and have little or no effect on trade balances (as we saw during the first Trump administration.) That’s not to suggest that the trade deficit cannot get smaller—deficits generally shrink during recessions. Trump should hope his plan once again does not “work”.

He got lucky, it didn’t work. No recession.

Next time you meet an advocate of “industrial policy”, ask them how Trump’s tariff policy is working out.