Elon Musk: “Money will stop mattering in 2036 because AI will produce more than we can consume”

The statement was made during an interview with The Economistwhere he presented a long-term vision of the impact of automation in the global economy. As he stated, the growth of productive capacity It will be so great that many needs will no longer depend on people’s purchasing power.

“Money won’t matter in 2036”Musk said. To justify that idea, he responded with another question: “What do you want money for? You want money for goods and services, right? Mainly for food, housing, transportation and entertainment“.

His argument starts from a abundance scenario powered by artificial intelligence. If robots and AI systems produce more goods and services than any one person can consume, he maintains, money would lose a good part of its function economic.

The hypothesis is not new in Musk’s thinking. For some time he has been arguing that automation will completely transform the labor market and that work will no longer be an obligation to become an optional activity.

In recent months he reiterated that vision in different forums, where he even projected a society in which poverty will disappear thanks to the expansion of robotics and artificial intelligence.

During the interview, Musk also addressed one of the main doubts that this scenario generates: what would happen if millions of people lose their jobs as a consequence of the advancement of AI.

His response was that governments could transfer money directly to citizens during the transition. Given the observation that a measure of this type could generate inflation, the businessman proposed an opposite scenario.

“I will make a prediction: The problem will be deflation, not inflation.“he assured.

As he explained, if the production of goods and services increases much faster than the amount of money in circulation, the consequence would be a price drop instead of an increase.

Musk also insisted that the change will be much deeper than any previous technological transformation. “The future is going to be very, very different from the past. “There is no analogy or metaphor that, in my opinion, illustrates the magnitude of the change that we are going to experience,” he said.

In that projection, even employment would lose its central character. The founder of Tesla imagines a scenario where people could dedicate themselves to activities chosen for personal interest and not because of economic necessity.

“There will be a universal high income. The work will be like growing a garden: you don’t need to do it, but you might want to do it,” he predicted.

The proposal is not completely new in Musk’s speech. For years he has defended some form of universal basic incomealthough in his most recent interventions he began to talk about a “high universal income”, a state transfer that would allow a high standard of living to be sustained in an economy where automation drastically reduces the need for human labor.

In this logic, the businessman maintains that the sharp increase in productivity generated by artificial intelligence and robotics would offset the emission necessary to finance that scheme.

His argument is that the production of goods and services would grow faster than the amount of money in circulation, an idea that reconnects with his prediction that the main economic concern of the future will not be inflation, but deflation.

For Musk, artificial intelligence will end up performing practically any intellectual task better than humans. “Artificial intelligence will be able to do any job better than anyoneand that will happen very quickly,” he said.

And he added: “Anything that involves a person working in front of a computer o one telephone can be done by artificial intelligence very soon.”

Although he describes a future of abundance, Musk acknowledged that the transition to that model could be complex and generate strong social tensions.

Asked about the risks of developing artificial intelligence, he admitted that his vision changes frequently. “If you ask me any day, even within the same day, I have spent from euphoria to terror regarding artificial intelligence,” he acknowledged.

In other recent interventions he also expressed concern about the speed of technological advance. According to him, there is a possibility that the AI systems far surpass human intelligence and that control over this technology becomes one of the main challenges of the coming decades.

His position thus coexists with an optimistic view of the economic potential of AI and a much more cautious view regarding its risks.

Meanwhile, different studies agree that artificial intelligence could have a large economic impact, although they warn that this growth It will depend on how your benefits are distributed and the ability of workers and companies to adapt to changes.

The vision of the founder of Tesla nor does it generate consensus within the technology industry itself. While Musk imagines an economy in which work will lose prominence thanks to AI, other figures in the sector maintain that the opposite will happen.

The CEO of Nvidia, Jensen Huangstated on different occasions that these tools will increase productivity and allow more projects to be developed, so people will be “busier”, not less.

The debate also reaches over the way in which the benefits of this transformation should be distributed.

Since OpenAI, Sam Altman raised the possibility of creating mechanisms for society to participate in wealth generated by artificial intelligence, while economists and technological leaders maintain conflicting positions on the role that the State should assume in the face of an eventual massive displacement of workers.

That is precisely one of the questions that Musk’s prediction leaves unanswered. The businessman is convinced that artificial intelligence will lead to a economy of abundance in which money will lose relevance, but recognizes that the path to reach that stage will be one of the biggest challenges that society will face in the coming years.