Six years ago we invited out Larry Kotlikoff as the Sir Doug Myers Visiting Professor to the University of Auckland. During a meeting with MPs, he argued that new forms of technology could send humans the way of horses. I had never heard that argument before. Now it is heard quite frequently, often in the context of Artificial Intelligence.
Larry said that back around 1920 there were 25 million working horses in the United States. Now there are only around 5 million. They got replaced by cars & tractors. Horses weren't much needed anymore. With declining birthrates breaking out across much of the world & population declines from Italy to Japan to China, one wonders whether Larry has a point. Here's a graph that shows the demise of horses:
