Hard to know what could happen, but if more and more men and women lose interest in sex "for fun", there will still be men and women wanting children. Well, until people get comfortable with the alternatives...
It makes sense that random sex for pleasure drops off, when you can get your fantasies through AI
Right now the population drop seems scary, but if more and more jobs also gets replaced by robots... Maybe it balances out?
I think people who have partners will prefer to have sex with their partner for pleasure, and people without partners will still want to either find one or hook up with a real stranger. If sex were just about physical sensation the population collapse would have happened a long time ago.
I doubt that the population will collapse, I feel it's more of a problem during a marriage if they get into it while in a relationship, but humans are always social animals and there's just an aspect to real life that can't be replicated through any form of media. Even talking to people online or in VR can't replace hanging out with someone in the park or a Diner. The population will be fine, just very awkward counseling moments is all.
Govs need people only for 3 reasons.
1. Taxes - No people no money
2. Cannon fodder - No people, no infantry
3. Control - Controlfreaks without people to order around become depressive instead of just insane
Nothing else matters. Thats also why weed was illegal for so long, stoned people dont fight or follow orders.
However, if VR becomes the norm instead of an expensive luxury and AI becomes good enough to stay interesting, govs get problems ^^
I think the answer is "yes", "no" and "it doesn't really matter" at the same time.
Yes, proliferation of high quality VR/sex bots/AI simulacra will decrease the desire for casual hookups and relationship based purely or mostly on sex.
But no, a lot of relationship are based on other aspects of life, like actual love, companionship and shared budget. So while it would probably be harder to start genuine relationship, the ones that do appear will be of higher, ahem, quality. And you need good family to make children. At least children that won't grow up traumatized from early age.
And it doesn't matter all that much because it is likely that we will have artificial wombs by the time AI sex bots get good enough to replace meaningful human relationship. So governments can just grow as many people as they need.
Which is another can of fun worms, but out of this thread's scope.
The cause of population decline is primarily due to factors such as urbanization. In rural communities, large families were necessary because of the need for workforce, but in cities, this is no longer necessary. In my country, one or two children in a family is the norm, three is an anomaly. Look at the experience of Red China - after a period of stabilization of the population, it has now begun to decline, with a very significant increase in the standard of living, btw. In India, which has a majority rural population, the population is increasing (despite poverty problems). And porn has nothing to do with it.
No, population is way too high and most people will choose the real thing. Besides, plenty of people want kids. It will just make such games much better.
I was having a dinner date one time and she kept getting texts, I finally joked to her that "those things will be the end of humanity, how are we supposed to reproduce if we can't even get girls to look at us?"
She waved dismissively and told me "There's an app for that."
I should've wifed her right there.
I think it will have a strong impact, but most likely other changes will affect our world as well. So it will be really hard to tell. But if we continue having a stable future, with the development of ai, then a lot of people will get their needs primarily from artificial sources, if nothing is done about it.
The problem there may not be the quantity but the quality. We skip natural selection and spread/deepen genetic defects, so we may be irreperable long before that really becomes a problem. At least natural selection will take over once we have a food shortage and only nuts, milk, fruit and vegetables are left to consume ^^