Tech's promise: An upside-down enlargement of the leisure class?

Elon Musk’s vision of a jobless future full of leisure and wealth for ordinary folks upends all we know about human history

- SANJOY CHAKRAVORTY

Last month, Tesla’s chief Elon Musk made some predictions at a US-Saudi investment forum (and repeated them on a podcast with Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath).

Whether one finds these predictions bold, startling, utopian, insane or frightening depends on one’s views on human nature and society and the world as we understand it. I find them frightening, yet banal. Bad ideas, even frightening ones, have a tendency to keep reappearing.

“My prediction is that work will be optional,” Musk said. “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.” Humanoid robots, Musk said, would become “the biggest industry or the biggest product ever, bigger than cellphones or anything else, because everyone's going to want one.” Then came the cherry on top. “AI and humanoid robots will actually eliminate poverty,” Musk added. “There is basically one way to make everyone wealthy, and that is AI and robotics.” All this is expected to take place within the next 20 years.