The world population has been steadily increasing for several centuries. As of November 2017, the world's population stands at approximately 7.6 billion people. According to UN projections the world population will be 9.7 billion in 2050.

Regrettably, increases in world population are worrying some people, who are concerned that an increased population may be too much for an already strained environment to bear. Indeed, overpopulation can be seen as the root cause on many problems, from climate change to resource depletion.

What will be the world population on December 31, 2050?

We shall define world population as the number of living humans on planet earth. We'll define humans as biological creatures who have as their ancestors – via a chain of live births from mothers – circa 2000 humans OR who could mate with circa 2000 humans to produce viable offspring. (So AIs, ems, genetically engineered beings of a different species brought up in artificial wombs, etc. would not count.)

Resolution shall be by UN data, if possible. If the UN shall no longer exist, or no longer measure human population by the resolution date, resolution shall be by data from what the Metaculus administration judges to be the most accurate data-source.