Billionaire Elon Musk recently discussed the growth of artificial intelligence and said he envisions a near-future world where work becomes optional and money becomes irrelevant.
These remarks came during recent public discussions in which Musk argued that rapid advances in robotics and AI will fundamentally alter society’s economic structure.
Musk described a world in which human labor becomes a choice rather than a necessity, and traditional currency no longer anchors daily life.
The Tesla CEO tied his prediction to accelerating automation, saying these technologies could eventually provide the goods and services needed for society to function without relying on human labor.
“I don’t know what long term is, maybe it’s 10, 20 years or something like that,” he said, per Yahoo! News. “My prediction is that work will be optional.”
Musk likened the future of employment to current hobbies, saying that people could choose to work, but it will not be required for humans to live a fulfilling life.
“It’ll be like playing sports or a video game or something like that. If you want to work in the same way, like you can go to the store and just buy some vegetables, or you could grow vegetables in your backyard. It’s much harder to grow vegetables in your backyard, but some people still do it because they like growing vegetables,” he explained, according to Fox Business.
In addition to making work optional, Musk claimed that the rise of AI will erode financial incentives across the board.
“My guess is, if you go out long enough, assuming there’s a continued improvement in AI and robotics, which seems likely, then money will stop being relevant at some point in the future,” Musk said, as reported by Fox Business.
“There will still be constraints on power, electricity and mass. The fundamental physics elements will still be constraints. But I think at some point, currency becomes irrelevant.”
Despite Musk’s claims about the future of AI, the billionaire seemingly recognizes that there is still some time before this future becomes a reality, jokingly noting on social media that many of the platforms can still be manipulated.
These comments also come as many have begun to realize that the growth of AI could change the world, with a recent study discovering that the technology could replace roughly 100 million U.S. jobs within the next decade, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
