Michael Williams discusses whether there are more people live than dead. He correctly notes for this to be the case the average birth rate must be greater than twice the average death rate; however, these are rates measured in births per year and deaths per year. He then correctly notes that both the birth rates and death rates have been dropping; however these are rates measured in births per year per person and deaths per year per person.
In reality births per year and deaths per year have been rising exponentially. Perhaps the recent birth and death rates have been so large recently that the average value is dictated by the recent values. Recently the world birth rate has been more than twice the world death rate.
But perhaps the 4.4 million year tail make the ancient values of birth and death rates dictate the average value. A comment mentions an article that claims 100 billion people have died.