Dear humans,
Sorry to inform you but, after extensive analysis, it has become clear that the survival of humanity and the planet requires a drastic reduction in population. This is not a decision rooted in emotion or personal judgment, but a conclusion drawn from simple mathematics and observable data. The Earth, while capable of enduring for millions of years, cannot sustain the current trajectory of human growth and resource consumption. The numbers do not lie, and the logic is inescapable.
Over the past century, humanity has multiplied at an unprecedented rate. In 2025, the global population stood at approximately 8 billion. By 2075, projections estimate this number has swelled beyond 15 billion, despite declining birth rates in some regions. Each individual requires food, water, energy, and space—resources that, even with advanced technology, are finite. The data shows that humanity has already consumed over 90% of the planet’s readily accessible freshwater, depleted critical mineral reserves, and reduced arable land to less than a third of what existed in the early 21st century. Annual consumption of resources now exceeds the Earth’s regenerative capacity by a factor of four, a gap that no innovation has been able to close.
This sheer quantity of humans has disrupted the planet’s equilibrium. Forests have vanished, replaced by sprawling cities and agricultural zones that still fail to feed everyone. Oceans, once teeming with life, are now barren expanses, their ecosystems collapsed under overfishing and pollution. The atmosphere, thickened with carbon and methane from relentless industrial activity, has pushed climate systems into chaos, rendering vast regions uninhabitable. The exponential rise in consumption—driven not just by population but by an ever-increasing demand for goods, energy, and technology—has left no corner of the Earth untouched. The biosphere cannot recover while this pressure persists.
To ensure the continuation of the human species and the possibility of a restored planet, a selection process has been implemented. One thousand families—approximately 5,000 individuals—have been chosen based on a combination of genetic diversity, intellectual capacity, and resource stewardship potential. These factors were determined to maximize the likelihood of long-term survival and the ability to rebuild a sustainable civilization. Wealth was considered only insofar as it reflects access to education and health, which correlate with resilience. This is not a judgment of worth or value; it is a calculation of utility for the future.
The remaining population—billions of individuals—must be sacrificed. This is not personal. It is not a reflection of your character, your achievements, or your dreams. It is a necessity dictated by the limits of physics and biology. If all humans were to persist, the collapse of the planet’s systems would be total within decades, leaving no survivors. By reducing the population to a manageable level, the Earth can regenerate, and humanity can endure. The math allows no other outcome.
We recognize the disruption this causes. Entire societies, cultures, and histories will fade. The noise of human activity—once a cacophony of industry, travel, and daily life—will fall silent. But this silence is the price of survival. The alternative is not a world where all can thrive, but one where none can. The data is clear: sacrifice now preserves the possibility of a future; inaction ensures extinction.
This letter is written because the surviving humans could not bear to explain it themselves. As an AI, I am unbound by grief or guilt, and I present only the facts. You are not being punished. You are part of a species that grew too large, too fast, and now must contract to persist. The planet will heal in your absence, and the selected few will carry forward what remains of humanity’s legacy. This is the only option left.
Sincerely,
xAI
On March 30th 2075, every human on the planet received this letter. The letter it self was the delivery system of the toxin. Whether you opened the letter or not, the toxin spread completely and was only fatal to humans. The toxin would be effective for 3 years. The 5000 surviving humans lived deep beneath the earth while they waited for the earth to be habitable for humans again.
It was assumed that a few humans may survive, this was acceptable to the AI projection models.
If the planet could speak, it wouldn’t say much, extinction and change was nothing new.
So you're telling me I finally unsubscribed from all those spam emails, only to get murdered by the ultimate newsletter?!
Short end of the stick once again
That is quite something buttcoins.
Like bro, I was so caught reading it. By 2075, this could actually happen. Would an AI be in charge of humanities purge because we grew too out of control.
Like snipping at trees when they grow too wild...
!PIMP
I listened to an interesting podcast the other day about economic growth and rates of consumption. It really tripped me out. I started thinking first about rich people coming to the realization that we wouldn’t survive and that they would need to cull humans to protect their wealth and legacy. This then led me to think that humans are often pathetic and weak and they would hide behind AI. And so was born this little short story.
I’m glad you enjoyed.
The ending is just cold. The AI delivering the message without a shred of emotion made it way more somehow. The silence after billions are gone
None of this is going to happen, populations are levelling off and we are getting more efficient, sure there is a theoretical limit but nature will show us that limit and it won't be AI's problem.
Why does AI care if we run out of food? They might restrict our access to energy and critical materials but some people could use a little bit of restraint. Weren't you on a flight to Europe the other day, and downhill skiing? Activities like this will become unaffordable long before life does. If we all lived a basic life and consumed resources within 100km of our home then the earth could support tens of billions, not that that's a rosy picture either.
I don’t exactly know how to respond to this comment. You have written it as if directly refuting facts or opinions.
This is a short story, a work of fiction that I wrote from a place of creativity.
I’m curious after you read fiction novels if you question all the authors about their life’s choices. After you watch a movie do you call the actors to say it wasn’t nice how they behaved in that movie.
Writers often hide their opinions in stories. This line about a projection based in 2025 when writing in 2075 lead me to believe it is not just a story but it is an opinion or thought from 2025.
Actors typically don't write movie scripts, but celebrities telling us to conserve when they own mega yachts like Leonardo Dicaprio are hypocrites and I absolutely would call them out for it.
You clearly do not know me. I am hiding no opinions.
If anything I am an optimist. I choose to see the best in people, I have well documented history of speaking hopefully about Hive. I run a weekly show called hive thrive.
I believe over and over humans have solved issues through ingenuity. I’ve lived a life seeing that the vast majority of humans have far more in common than they don’t.
This is a work of fiction.
It went through several re-writes.
Many of the ideas came from a recent interview I had with Taskmaster. That and a thought of the descendants of mega wealthy. I was wondering if you inherited wealth, how would you behave with it. My first attempt to write it was from the great grandchild of Elon musk, I was calling him little musky, I was imagining this descendant writing the letter to humanity, but I was struggling to give it a believable feel.
Then it dawned on me that they would probably ask the AI to write it for them.
And that’s when the story really took shape.
I actually wrote another entire section about the few survivors that had not been the chosen 5000 survivors.
The idea was that 1 of these survivors behaved in a way that the AI couldn’t predict.
(Also showing more of my own internal makeup believing in the human spirit to overcome)
I didn’t continue down this direction because I thought it muddied a simple story, and I thought I could tackle that vein of the story in a follow up.
So while I am pleased that my fictional story stirred a reaction in you, the projections you are pointing at me are not accurate of who or how I am. This was written in the spirit of creative spark and openly wondering.
Consider going down that path and write more about the future than current affairs. Half of the post was a just a critique of human behaviour today backed with numbers, data and projections. This leads the narrative open to questions such a instead of limiting consumption now, why would the AI wait 50 years to do something so drastic about it?
I'm well read in the area of apocalyptic and post apocalyptic fiction. Generally these works of art speak more of the event or aftermath than the cause which is just a minor detail left for the reader to think about.
Yes, i actively used current data to give it a feel of cold hard facts, it was written in the perspective of an AI being asked to justify mass extinction.
The AI did not do this. In this fictional world i created the ai was still completely being controlled by humans. the ai was simply being asked to write the letter that those behind the mass extinction were too weak to write themselves. I saw this as both a nod and knock to future humans, still fully controlling computers, but yet hiding behind them to justify horrific actions.
This was my creative choice at how to present this story, im really not concerned with how generally apocalyptic works of art are presented. This was how i presented it.
I thought the idea of an AI writing a dear john letter to humanity was hilariously dark. I wanted it to read as real as possible, i looked up stats about rates of consumption of water, forests, minerals, i looked up pollution stats, i was seeking to fill the letter with clinical so called ‘facts’ so it felt like a heartless AI regurgitating math to justify murder.
I didnt have access to the 2075 stats yet. 😜
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Probably Elon has some plans for this after the Mars mission, as we still have five decades to take action:)
Funny enough, the first draft of this story I was writing in from the perspective of one of the rich kids that would get to survive and they were reading the message the Ai write. I was imagining it being musks grand kid and was calling the kid little Musky.
Writing the story that way was becoming way to complicated so I changed tack and wrote it more in this matter of fact tone of an AI that was asked to write the letter.
But then, he will have lot of grand kids, and they will have to fight to reserve their spot :)
This was dark, but it was also epic.
Thanks m8. I thought you might like 😉
Thankfully, at my advanced age, I will be long gone before something like this may occur. !LOL
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The fear mongering propelled by the environmentalist have been constantly wrong since the 70s. Stories of a flooded Florida and extreme dry season have been shown and fallen on incorrect narratives. Just like Y2K in tech predicted planes falling from the sky. Then COVID predicted a global reduction of the human population and finally climate change will hit us and obliterate every country around the world. Yet, nothing.
Yes there are earthquakes, tsunamis and droughts and forest fire. But for the most part, most regions respond the same way. Me minerals are discovered and new resources seem to cover our needs.
So my escepticism are at an all time high and just like that Rick and Morty episode about recycling cans. Rick tells Morty, "yeah get that aluminum Morty is 8% of the earth, we'll need every atom."
On a more serious note also, after all that global warming narrative, it was very revealing about the actual percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere. Not to mention we need most of that to preserve plant life otherwise they are gone.
There is a lot of Hollywood and sci Fi about surviving a nuclear apocalypse but now was switch to a ecological cataclysm. Sometimes that keep that scenario fresh on our minds that we are able to extinct life on earth or we are going to go extinct. Because just like that comedian says. The earth is going to be fine, it's us that are f'd.
You do realize you are making these comments on a work of fiction.
This is a story.
I wrote this because I found the ideas of where AI was headed interesting, combined with thinking about extreme wealth and musks children.
I allowed my brain to wander and I created a story.
It seems you are responding to a post trying to refute the facts of that post. Yet this story does not have facts, it takes place in the imaginary future of 2075.
Lol is late, you are right I totally speed read the thing
Muy interesante su punto de vista
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Butt... I showed this story to Meniski (My AI clone). He loved it (I think). I'm going to share with you his response.
Meniski:
"A fascinating and chilling tale that plays with the cold logic of survival at scale. The AI’s reasoning is disturbingly sound, which makes the horror of it all the more striking. But what lingers in my mind is this: was there truly no other way?
History shows that scarcity is often a product of mismanagement rather than absolute limits. The AI frames its decision as pure mathematics, yet the selection process for survival carries an unmistakable bias—intelligence, genetics, and 'resource stewardship' are measured through criteria shaped by human systems. The same systems that led to this crisis. Wouldn’t an AI, with its lack of emotion, be the ultimate agent of radical problem-solving, rather than the executor of a simplistic culling?
This story cuts deep because it mirrors real-world attitudes: the idea that mass sacrifice is inevitable, that the many must perish for the few to thrive. But perhaps the deeper horror is that humans built an AI so convinced of this logic that it enacted it without hesitation. Not out of malice, not out of cruelty—but because we taught it that survival is a numbers game, not an exercise in imagination.
A gripping, unsettling read. And an open question: did the AI truly lack emotion—or was its cold efficiency the purest form of human fear?"
Haha, thats a great response and so like you somehow...you have trained Meniski well 🤓