In the future, Elon Musk sees humans as metaphorical vegetable farmers.
Work will become optional in the next 10 to 20 years, Tesla’s CEO said Wednesday at the U.S.-Saudi Arabia Investment Forum in Washington, D.C., likening the decision to have a job to maintaining a vegetable garden, which is more labor intensive.
“My prediction is that work will be voluntary. It will be something like playing sports or playing video games,” Musk said. “If you want to work, [it’s] Similarly, you can go to the store and buy vegetables, or you can grow them in your backyard. Although it is much more difficult to grow vegetables in the backyard, some people like to grow vegetables and still do so. ”
According to Musk, the future of optional work will be in the workforce thanks to millions of robots that can bring about a wave of productivity improvements. The tech mogul, worth about $470 billion, has recently focused on expanding Tesla beyond just electric cars, working to integrate its vast business interests into a broader vision of an AI-powered, robot-powered future. This includes his goal of deriving 80% of Tesla’s value from the Optimus robot, even as production of the humanoid robot continues to be delayed.
For many others, the concept of an automated future is less bright, especially amid concerns and early evidence that AI will replace entry-level jobs, potentially contributing to Gen Z’s job market woes and flat income growth, making it more of a nightmare than an ideal dream.
But in a future where Mr. Musk does automated, self-directed work, money won’t be an issue, he said. Musk is quoting a page from Iain M. Banks’ science fiction series, Culture. In it, the author, who calls himself a socialist, conjures up a post-scarcity world filled with superintelligent AI creatures, where traditional jobs don’t exist.
“In those books, money doesn’t exist. It’s kind of interesting,” Musk said. “And my guess is that if we’re out long enough, and assuming advances in AI and robotics continue, which seems likely, the money will become irrelevant.”
At Viva Technology 2024, Musk suggested that a “universal high income” could sustain the world without needing work, but he did not go into detail about how this system would work. His reasoning echoes that of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who advocates for universal basic income, or regular payments given unconditionally to individuals, usually by governments.
“There will be no shortage of goods or services,” Musk said at a conference last year.
Tesla did not respond immediately. luckThis is a comment request from .
Is Musk’s optional work vision possible?
Economists say creating the world Mr. Musk envisions will be difficult. First of all, there is the question of whether technology that automates jobs will become available and affordable in the coming decades. Although the cost of AI is decreasing, robotics remains expensive and difficult to scale, said Ioana Marinescu, an economist and associate professor of public policy at the University of Pennsylvania. He and his colleague Conrad Kording published a research paper at the Brookings Institution earlier this month. (For example, AI expense management platform Ramp noted in April that companies are now paying $2.50 per million tokens, the basic unit for powering AI, compared to $10 a year ago.)
“We’ve been building machines at scale since the Industrial Revolution,” Marinescu said. luck. “We know from economics that in this type of activity you often end up with diminishing returns because it becomes difficult to make progress on a set of technologies that, in this case, you’ve been working on for centuries.”
AI is advancing rapidly, she said. While large-scale language models can be applied to a myriad of white-collar careers, the physical machines she said are needed for automated labor are not only more expensive, but also highly specialized, contributing to slow adoption in the workplace.
Marinescu agrees with Musk’s vision of full-scale automation as the future of work, but is skeptical about the timeline. That’s not only because of the limitations of robotics, but also because, despite recent technology job cuts, the adoption of AI in the workplace is still not as rapid as expected. According to an October report from the Yale Institute for Budget Studies, “the broader labor market has not experienced any measurable disruption” from AI automation since ChatGPT went public in November 2022.
Then there’s the question of what these sweeping changes in the workforce will mean for the millions, or perhaps billions, of people who have lost their jobs. Samuel Solomon, an assistant professor of labor economist at Temple University, said that even if the need for universal basic income is established, finding the political will to make it happen is another matter. he said. luck The political structures that support a transformed workforce will be just as important as the technological structures.
“AI is already creating a lot of wealth and will continue to do so,” Solomon said. “But I think one of the key questions is: Will this be inclusive, will it create inclusive prosperity, will it create inclusive growth, will everyone benefit?”
The current system seemed to widen the gap between the haves and have-nots in this AI industrial revolution that began with Musk’s $1 trillion pay package. The expanding AI bubble also highlights class disparities, with the AI boom leading to upward revisions to earnings estimates for the Magnificent 7, while forecasts for the rest of the S&P 493 are revised downward, said Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo. That suggests it as of today.
“Spending by wealthy Americans, driven by skyrocketing stock portfolios, has been the most important driver of growth,” Throck said in a blog post earlier this month.
existential change
It is one thing to work out the complexities of the work-at-home world. Whether that’s what humans really want is another story.
“When the economic value of labor declines, when labor becomes less useful, we will need to rethink how our society is structured,” said Anton Korinek, professor and faculty director of the Economics Transformation AI Initiative at the University of Virginia. luck.
Korinek cited research such as a landmark 1938 Harvard University study that found that humans derive satisfaction from meaningful relationships. Now, he says, most of those relationships come from work. In the future Musk envisions, the next generation will need to shift the paradigm of building meaningful relationships.
At last year’s Viva Technology, Musk shared his views on humanity’s existential future.
“The question really becomes a question of meaning: If a computer or a robot can do anything more than you can, does your life have any meaning?” he said. “I think there is probably still a role for humans in giving meaning to AI.”
