Elon Musk
According to the world’s richest person, Elon Musk, the future of the world will be determined by Artificial Intelligence (AI). In this future, money will disappear, jobs will become optional hobbies, and poverty will be eradicated. While this may sound highly futuristic, when a person who runs the world’s largest tech companies and is a formidable name in the AI field makes such a claim, it demands serious attention.
Speaking at the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum alongside NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, Musk presented a comprehensive vision of a future utterly transformed by artificial intelligence and robotics. In that world, currency will be obsolete, and work will no longer be a necessity.
Musk, who leads his AI company xAI and its chatbot Grok, in addition to Tesla and SpaceX, stated at the event, “AI and humanoid robots will truly eliminate poverty.” He added that robots will “make everyone rich.”
A World Without Currency
“Currency will become irrelevant,” Musk said. He acknowledged that physical constraints like electricity and mass would still exist, but “the relevance of money will disappear.” Here, Musk referenced the “Culture” series by science fiction author Iain M. Banks, which depicts a future society where AI and robots handle all labor. Whether humans work or not would depend entirely on their desire. Musk explained that this series “shows what a potential AI-created future would look like.”
Work as an Optional Pursuit
Musk compared future work to gardening—an activity done for pleasure, not for survival. “Growing vegetables in your backyard is very difficult, but some people still do it because they enjoy growing vegetables. Work in the future will be like that—optional,” he said.
