Elon Musk has never been shy about his bold visions for the future, whether it’s colonising Mars or integrating AI with the human brain. But one of his most unsettling predictions might hit closer to home: the idea that, eventually, people could become ‘useless’ in the traditional sense.
Musk’s comments, made during the 2024 VivaTech conference in Paris, paint a future where automation and artificial intelligence handle virtually all tasks currently performed by humans. In this world, traditional jobs vanish—not because of economic collapse, but because machines simply outperform humans at nearly everything.
It’s a reality Musk believes is fast approaching and while he foresees an era of universal high income, where people have abundant wealth without working, the psychological consequences could be profound.
“The harder challenge is how do people then have meaning…If you’re not needed, if there’s not a need for your labor, how do you find meaning? Do you feel useless?,” Musk said.
The future of abundance
This unsettling question taps into a deeper fear that automation isn’t just threatening jobs, it’s threatening human purpose. Musk suggests that in a future of abundance, where all goods and services are provided by machines, humans could be left searching for purpose in a world that no longer relies on their efforts.
Musk’s prediction about universal basic income has evolved into something more ambitious — universal high income. This isn’t just survival money; it’s abundant wealth provided to everyone, thanks to hyper-efficient AI-driven economies. Goods would be cheap, services would be plentiful, and financial scarcity could become a relic of the past.
In this scenario, work would shift from being a necessity to a personal choice—a hobby or passion project, rather than a survival requirement.