Musk: AI Will Make Money Nugatory, Work Non-compulsory, Retirement-saving Out of date — and Extra

If “work ennobles man,” as the saying goes, are we headed for a very ignoble future? If “cash is king” today, what will reign tomorrow? If an abundance of the material can bury the spiritual, are we headed for an ever-more intensified secularism?

These questions could and should be asked with a prediction billionaire industrialist Elon Musk recently made.

Our not-too-distant future is one, he says, in which cash will be worthless and work merely an option. Why, Musk adds, there may not even be a reason to save for retirement. How come?

Artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics will in a decade or two, he states, deliver a world of mechanical slaves that will satisfy every human need and want. In fact, the only limit to the abundance might be energy constraints and raw materials’ finiteness.

Reporting on the story earlier this week, The Daily Overview wrote:

Musk has moved beyond warning that AI will disrupt jobs and is now arguing that it will underwrite a new baseline of prosperity. As Tesla CEO, he has said that advanced systems will create a kind of universal high income that makes traditional saving less important, because machines will be able to produce almost everything people need with minimal human labor. In his view, the combination of AI and robotics [AI-Bot] will eliminate poverty by driving the cost of goods and services toward zero….

He has gone further, arguing that as AI systems scale, money itself will soon be useless in the way people currently understand it. In one account, the argument is framed explicitly as “According to Elon Musk, Money Will Soon Be Useless, Why Does He Predict the End of Poverty,” with Musk contending that AI and robotics will become the backbone of a utopian society where scarcity is engineered away and financial incentives lose their central role. That framing captures his claim that the same technologies that threaten existing jobs could, if managed correctly, also dismantle material deprivation….

This may sound fanciful to some. But the only real question is whether we’ll destroy ourselves, or whether AI will, before or soon after this technology’s full flowering. What’s for certain is that if we don’t, AI-Bot will eventually be able to perform every or virtually every job. Why, need a plumber? A dexterous AI android may be repairing your pipes.

Will IRA Mean Irrelevant, Redundant, and Antiquated?

Another implication of this tech is that predictions about Social Security’s collapse would no longer matter. Per Market Realist, writing today:

Appearing on the podcast “Moonshots” with Pete Diamandis, Musk told listeners, “One side recommendation I have is: Don’t worry about squirreling money away for retirement in 10 or 20 years. It won’t matter.”

… Musk said the advances in AI will translate into “better medical care than anyone has today” in the next five years. “No scarcity of goods and services. You can learn anything you want about anything for free,” Musk added.

… “The services will be there to support you. You’ll have the home, you’ll have the healthcare, you’ll have the entertainment” [host Diamandis later chimed in].

Despite this rosy picture, Musk acknowledged that “all that glitters is not gold.” As Market Realist also informs, the

Tesla CEO warned that it will be a “bumpy transition” into this utopian world, marked by a series of jarring changes and social unrest. “Now, if you actually get all the stuff you want, is that actually the future you want?” he asked. ‘”Because it means that your job won’t matter,” Musk added.

And how close is this “singularity”? Musk believes we’re “at the top of the roller coaster, and it’s about to go down.” “Artificial general intelligence” will become reality this year, he says, and by 2030 will exceed all humans’ combined intelligence.

Man Does Not Live on Bread Alone

Now, most know the saying that begins, “If something sounds too good to be true….” Many implications of this technology are most interesting, too — and daunting. A sampling:

• Would abundance be meaningfully limited even by energy and natural-resource constraints? AI should ultimately be able to deliver workable fusion (clean, virtually limitless energy). And nanotechnology may enable us to assemble raw materials starting from the atomic level.
• Loss of meaning — Speaking of AI, in 1999’s film The Matrix, “Agent Smith” gave a speech about how he and the other sentient programs had originally designed the computer simulation they trapped humans in as a perfect world. “It was a disaster,” he explained. “No one would accept the program.” Yes, well, an “idle mind is the Devil’s workshop.” And how hedonistic would people become, freed from all struggle to survive in an economic Utopia? Then again, since materialism ultimately doesn’t satisfy, would some seek meaning through God?
• Immigration — AI-Bot would eliminate both the need for immigrant workers, and the strain unproductive migrants place on our system.
• Education — would we value it? Would many people become like The Time Machine’s Eloi, effete and ignorant?
• Political implications — would extinguishing material need and want extinguish socialism? If so, this abundance would not, as Karl Marx might’ve supposed, eliminate human strife. For the Seven Deadly Sins would still remain. Some among us would still crave power, control, and dominance. In fact, with seeking riches no longer an option, power (and fame) lust might become an even more common obsession.
• Birth rates — on one hand, the financial burdens children bring would be lifted. On the other, hedonists don’t have high fertility rates. Moreover, what will happen when there are androids realistic enough to essentially be Stepford wives or husbands?

More Implications of AI-Bot — From AI

Then, finally, I had Grok AI weigh in on what his descendants may deliver. Here are two of Mr. Grok’s points (many I covered already above):

• Technological Acceleration: Integration of AI with robotics, neural interfaces (e.g., Neuralink), and other tech could achieve singularity faster, where AI self-improves beyond human comprehension, altering reality in unpredictable ways.
• Ethical and Existential Risks: Potential for dystopian outcomes, such as AI misalignment leading to “Terminator”-like scenarios, or human obsolescence raising questions about AI rights, dependency, and the value of human life.

For sure, the misanthropic, “man is a pox upon the planet” types already call many people “useless eaters.” What will their perspective be when almost no human is economically productive?

And, lastly, as I put it on X Tuesday:

My meaning goes beyond the science-fiction-like possibility that AI could exterminate man. The more mundane threat is that government will use this massive power to control us — and, maybe, limit our number?

And that’s ever the problem with Utopian visions and promises, isn’t it? Human sin always gets in the way.