At a recent investment forum in Washington, Elon Musk made one of his most sweeping predictions to date: in just 10 to 20 years, work will be optional, and money may become irrelevant. His rationale? A world powered by AI and humanoid robots, where abundance eliminates the need for labor.
“It’ll be like playing sports or a video game,” Musk said at the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum on November 20. In his view, jobs will become hobbies—like growing vegetables in your backyard instead of buying them at the store.
Musk attributed this future to rapid advances in artificial intelligence and the scaling of robotic labor, particularly through Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robots. He has said that as much as 80% of Tesla’s long-term value could eventually come from robotics. But in the same breath, he admitted these robots are still delayed in development.
Robots Are Coming, but Slowly
Musk’s vision is anchored in automation. If machines can replace human labor at scale, he argues, work becomes a personal choice. Tesla’s Optimus robot is central to this equation—but the project is still years away from commercial viability.
“I think work will be optional,” Musk said, adding that this transformation would be driven by a “massive number of humanoid robots.”
But researchers say robotics isn’t advancing fast enough to meet Musk’s timetable.
“We’ve been at it making machines forever,” said economist Ioana Marinescu in Fortune. “You often run into decreasing returns” in robotics, she said, pointing out that physical machines are still expensive and highly specialized.
This gap is reflected in the data. A recent Brookings Institution working paper co-authored by Marinescu noted that while software-based AI tools are advancing rapidly, hardware remains costly and difficult to scale.
Moreover, a Yale Budget Lab analysis from October 2024 found that despite widespread fear of automation, the “broader labor market has not experienced a discernible disruption” due to AI adoption since the release of tools like ChatGPT in 2022.
Universal Income or Unequal Outcomes?
Musk has floated the idea of a “universal high income” to sustain this future, citing his belief that there would be “no shortage of goods or services.” But he stopped short of outlining how such a system would function—or who would fund it.
At the VivaTech 2024 conference in Paris, he reiterated that “money will stop being relevant,” citing Iain M. Banks’ Culture novels as a model for post-scarcity economics. In those books, sentient AI manages a society free from labor, currency, or material constraints.
Yet even in fiction, such abundance didn’t eliminate conflict. And in reality, experts warn that Musk’s wealth-distribution assumptions ignore the deeper political and structural challenges.
“We know AI has already created so much wealth and will continue to,” said Samuel Solomon, a labor economist at Temple University, in Fortune. “But one key question is: Is this going to be inclusive?”
A report by Apollo Global Management underscores the concern. It found that gains from the AI boom have disproportionately favored top investors—especially those in the “Magnificent Seven” tech stocks—while the broader S&P 493 has seen earnings projections decline.
What Happens When Meaning Decouples From Labor?
Even if work disappears, the human need for purpose doesn’t. “If the economic value of labor declines so that labor is just not very useful anymore, we’ll have to rethink how our society is structured,” said Anton Korinek, an economist at the University of Virginia.
Korinek referenced a landmark Harvard study from 1938 that found humans derive fulfillment from meaningful relationships—many of which are forged in the workplace.
Musk himself acknowledged this existential dilemma at VivaTech 2024:
“The question will really be one of meaning: If the computer and robots can do everything better than you, does your life have meaning?”
He suggested that humans might play a new role—not as producers, but as sources of meaning for AI. Still, that speculative idea does little to address what will happen if society loses the connective tissue of work. Who helps people transition? What replaces professional identity? Musk offers no answer.
The Fiction Behind the Forecast
Musk’s thinking draws heavily from the late Iain M. Banks’ Culture series—a sprawling sci-fi vision of a post-labor, post-money civilization guided by hyperintelligent machines. In Banks’ world, people engage in diplomacy, art, or hedonism, while AI manages logistics, governance, and productivity.
The appeal is clear: the end of scarcity, no pressure to work, and freedom from economic stress. But in Banks’ universe, the Culture often wrestles with moral ambiguity, cultural interference, and internal stagnation—raising questions about purpose and autonomy, even in paradise.
The parallels between Musk’s vision and Banks’ fiction are striking. But in contrast to literature, real-life change is constrained by politics, engineering limits, and entrenched economic interests.
So far, Musk has provided the concept—but not the infrastructure. His robots are in early testing. The policy scaffolding for post-labor income is nonexistent. And the global economy remains deeply entangled with labor as a source of identity, value, and power.
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