Over the past century, nearly every economic growth model has operated on a default premise: the next generation will be larger than the current one.
A larger population means more abundant labor, a larger consumer market, and more predictable long-term returns.
But this premise is failing globally.
China, Japan, South Korea, Europe, and even the United States - declining birth rates are shifting from “statistics” to structural reality.
And when “people” are no longer the most abundant, cheapest, or most replicable factor of production, the entire narrative around technology and institutions must be rewritten.
The emergence of Web3 and AI is not a coincidental technological wave, but an inevitable response to the age of population deflation.
I. Population Collapse: An Underestimated Systemic Risk
When discussing population decline, most discussions only focus on “labor shortages.”
But if you only understand it as a “hiring problem,” you’ll severely underestimate its destructive power.
What population deflation truly erodes is a deeper three-layer structure.
Labor Force: From Cyclical Issue to Irreversible Structural Scarcity
China’s Birth Population Gap (2010–2023)
Visually, what you see is not a “decline,” but a clear cliff-like collapse.
Using China as an example:
2016: approximately 17.86 million newborns
2023: approximately 9 million newborns
2025: below 8 million
In 7 years, directly cut in half.
What does this mean?
When people born in 2023 enter the labor force around 2045: it’s not “fewer,” but “half fewer.”
This is not cyclical fluctuation, but a structural collapse of population demographics.
More critically, this trend has been confirmed by long-term forecasts: according to the UN’s World Population Prospects 2022 report, China’s working-age population (15–64 years old) will decrease by approximately 170 million people between 2020–2050.
In the past, commercial systems operated on a default premise: “We can always hire people; it’s just a matter of price.”
But in the age of population deflation, the problem has changed.
Delayed retirement, immigration policies, and birth subsidies are all slow-moving variables.
And commercial systems cannot wait twenty years.
This is where all technological narratives begin to deform.
Attention and Creator Supply Shrink Together: Web2’s Hidden Fatal Flaw
Declining youth population brings not only reduced labor supply, but also a more hidden and equally fatal problem: who will produce content, and who will consume it?
Declining number of content producers
Slower dissemination of new culture and narratives
Platform traffic growth logic breaks down
Web2’s dependence on the “user growth → traffic → advertising → commission” model is fundamentally built on population expansion.
When new users stop appearing, platforms become internally competitive, rules change frequently, and trust between creators and platforms erodes.
This is precisely Web2’s most difficult-to-repair structural defect in the population deflation era.
Systemic Collapse on the Demand Side Long-Term: Long-Termism is Being Forcibly Re-Evaluated
Real estate, education, long-term consumer goods, pension systems…
The common point of these systems is: they all implicitly assume that there will be more people in the future.
When this assumption breaks, all “long-term assets” will be repriced.
II. Why is AI a Necessity in the Age of Population Deflation?
Human Labor Contraction vs. AI Capital Exponential Expansion
On one side is slow but certain decline, on the other is exponential growth. The only “labor force” that can still expand is not human.
If population deflation changes the problem itself, then AI is becoming the only viable answer.
AI is Not an Efficiency Tool, but a “De-Humanization Tool”
We’re accustomed to describing AI as an “efficiency tool.”
But in the real world, what it solves is not an efficiency problem, but a structural one: the system no longer needs so many people.
AI customer service, AI content generation, AI research assistants, AI trading systems - their significance is not making people 20% faster, but removing “people” from the system’s necessary conditions.
In a world of population deflation, the real question is no longer: “Can we find people for this position?” but rather: “Does this function need people involved?”
AI is not replacing inefficient humans, but rewriting society’s entire dependency assumptions on “human labor.”
AI is the Only Labor Force Capable of Exponential Growth
Population: linear growth, or even negative growth
AI: computing power, models, data → exponential expansion
This is also why, despite extreme macroeconomic uncertainty, capital still chooses to heavily invest in AI.
Because in the age of population deflation, only AI possesses “scalability capacity.”
AI Makes “Individuals” Production Units Again
Production Unit Compression Illustration (Team → Individual + AI)
From “10-person teams” to “1 person + AI,” production units are being rapidly compressed.
AI is catalyzing a new organizational form:
Solo companies
Super individuals
Solo founders
AI-native creators
When society can no longer batch-produce young people, the system can only choose to: amplify individuals.
III. So What Role Does Web3 Play Here?
If AI solves “who will do the work,” then Web3 solves a more fundamental problem:
In an age of fewer people, how do we collaborate, distribute value, and build trust?
How to Collaborate at Low Cost in an Age of Fewer People?
人口通縮時代、未来は「スーパー個人＋AI＋Web3」に属する
Author: Amelia | Biteye Content Team
Over the past century, nearly every economic growth model has operated on a default premise: the next generation will be larger than the current one.
A larger population means more abundant labor, a larger consumer market, and more predictable long-term returns.
But this premise is failing globally.
China, Japan, South Korea, Europe, and even the United States - declining birth rates are shifting from “statistics” to structural reality.
And when “people” are no longer the most abundant, cheapest, or most replicable factor of production, the entire narrative around technology and institutions must be rewritten.
The emergence of Web3 and AI is not a coincidental technological wave, but an inevitable response to the age of population deflation.
I. Population Collapse: An Underestimated Systemic Risk
When discussing population decline, most discussions only focus on “labor shortages.”
But if you only understand it as a “hiring problem,” you’ll severely underestimate its destructive power.
What population deflation truly erodes is a deeper three-layer structure.
Labor Force: From Cyclical Issue to Irreversible Structural Scarcity
China’s Birth Population Gap (2010–2023)
Visually, what you see is not a “decline,” but a clear cliff-like collapse.
Using China as an example:
2016: approximately 17.86 million newborns
2023: approximately 9 million newborns
2025: below 8 million
In 7 years, directly cut in half.
What does this mean?
When people born in 2023 enter the labor force around 2045: it’s not “fewer,” but “half fewer.”
This is not cyclical fluctuation, but a structural collapse of population demographics.
More critically, this trend has been confirmed by long-term forecasts: according to the UN’s World Population Prospects 2022 report, China’s working-age population (15–64 years old) will decrease by approximately 170 million people between 2020–2050.
In the past, commercial systems operated on a default premise: “We can always hire people; it’s just a matter of price.”
But in the age of population deflation, the problem has changed.
Delayed retirement, immigration policies, and birth subsidies are all slow-moving variables.
And commercial systems cannot wait twenty years.
This is where all technological narratives begin to deform.
Attention and Creator Supply Shrink Together: Web2’s Hidden Fatal Flaw
Declining youth population brings not only reduced labor supply, but also a more hidden and equally fatal problem: who will produce content, and who will consume it?
Declining number of content producers
Slower dissemination of new culture and narratives
Platform traffic growth logic breaks down
Web2’s dependence on the “user growth → traffic → advertising → commission” model is fundamentally built on population expansion.
When new users stop appearing, platforms become internally competitive, rules change frequently, and trust between creators and platforms erodes.
This is precisely Web2’s most difficult-to-repair structural defect in the population deflation era.
Systemic Collapse on the Demand Side Long-Term: Long-Termism is Being Forcibly Re-Evaluated
Real estate, education, long-term consumer goods, pension systems…
The common point of these systems is: they all implicitly assume that there will be more people in the future.
When this assumption breaks, all “long-term assets” will be repriced.
II. Why is AI a Necessity in the Age of Population Deflation?
Human Labor Contraction vs. AI Capital Exponential Expansion
On one side is slow but certain decline, on the other is exponential growth. The only “labor force” that can still expand is not human.
If population deflation changes the problem itself, then AI is becoming the only viable answer.
AI is Not an Efficiency Tool, but a “De-Humanization Tool”
We’re accustomed to describing AI as an “efficiency tool.”
But in the real world, what it solves is not an efficiency problem, but a structural one: the system no longer needs so many people.
AI customer service, AI content generation, AI research assistants, AI trading systems - their significance is not making people 20% faster, but removing “people” from the system’s necessary conditions.
In a world of population deflation, the real question is no longer: “Can we find people for this position?” but rather: “Does this function need people involved?”
AI is not replacing inefficient humans, but rewriting society’s entire dependency assumptions on “human labor.”
AI is the Only Labor Force Capable of Exponential Growth
Population: linear growth, or even negative growth
AI: computing power, models, data → exponential expansion
This is also why, despite extreme macroeconomic uncertainty, capital still chooses to heavily invest in AI.
Because in the age of population deflation, only AI possesses “scalability capacity.”
AI Makes “Individuals” Production Units Again
Production Unit Compression Illustration (Team → Individual + AI)
From “10-person teams” to “1 person + AI,” production units are being rapidly compressed.
AI is catalyzing a new organizational form:
Solo companies
Super individuals
Solo founders
AI-native creators
When society can no longer batch-produce young people, the system can only choose to: amplify individuals.
III. So What Role Does Web3 Play Here?
If AI solves “who will do the work,” then Web3 solves a more fundamental problem:
In an age of fewer people, how do we collaborate, distribute value, and build trust?
How to Collaborate at Low Cost in an Age of Fewer People?
DAOs, permissionless collaboration, project-based contributions——
Web3 reconstructs “organization” from long-term employment relationships to temporary, flexibly-combinable collaboration networks.
When hiring becomes increasingly expensive, trust and settlement must be automated.
How to Distribute Value in an Age of Fewer People?
In an era where labor becomes scarce, if value distribution isn’t transparent, the system will quickly lose participants.
Tokens, on-chain incentives, instant settlement solve not “speculation,” but a practical problem:
How do we make scarce labor willing to stay and keep building?
How to Establish Long-Term Trust in an Age of Fewer People?
The younger generation’s trust in long-term commitments is collapsing:
Distrust in pensions
Distrust that platforms won’t change rules
Distrust in long-term incentives from centralized institutions
Smart contracts and on-chain rules are essentially answering:
When people are insufficient and trust is insufficient, can rules execute themselves?
IV. Web3 + AI: The Complete Solution to Population Deflation
An increasingly clear judgment is forming: Web3 is not AI’s competitor, but the institutional shell of the AI era.
What does an AI Agent need?
Identity
Wallet
Self-trading ability
Programmable rules
These are precisely Web3’s native capabilities.
In the not-distant future, we may see:
AI-native companies
AI-autonomous DAOs
AI-to-AI economic collaboration
In this system, humans may no longer be the largest group of economic participants.
V. Final Thoughts: What Does This Mean for Individuals?
For individuals, it’s a cruel but real fact: you won’t be lifted by the “population growth” dividend anymore.
But it equally means new windows:
AI amplifies personal productivity
Web3 lets individuals directly participate in—global systems
A world of fewer people is actually more friendly to high-cognition, high-action individuals
If you’re an investor/creator, here are action recommendations from Biteye:
For Investors:
Population deflation is a 20–30 year level certainty variable, not macro noise
All business models relying on “population expansion” should have their valuations discounted
There are only three directions worth long-term attention:
AI that directly replaces labor
Tools that amplify individual productivity
Web3 infrastructure that operates in low-trust environments
For Creators/Individuals:
Stop assuming “platforms will give you long-term returns”
Try to make yourself into:
A node that can be amplified by AI
A personal brand that can migrate across platforms
An independent production unit for direct settlement
After all, in the age of population deflation:
The system won’t take care of you, but the system needs you.
This is not an era of more and more people,
but an era where each individual must become increasingly strong; and what you must rely on is AI and Web3.