By Thorsten Polleit
Elon Musk recently claimed that artificial intelligence will make money itself obsolete. He needs to read the literature of Austrian economics.
I know I've heard this view from tech people I know irl. They never have the slightest clue as to what money is or does.
I'm assuming that what they have in mind is a post-scarcity world?
That this isn't some deeper reflection on the role of money as a unit of account, medium of exchange, and store of value?
You're right, but that's such a preposterous utopian fantasy.
Scarcity is a fundamental of reality because human wants are unbounded.
And our time is limited
Even if we lived forever, there would still be scarcity in what we can do with each moment
Yes, they forget that time itself is absolutely scarce. The fact that we're all dying guarantees constant scarcity.
Even if we weren't, see #1328328
My favorite silly thing that Elon says is, "Universal high income." I believe his words, assuming that he's talking about high income by today's standards. I don't think the high income will matter much, when the dollar is hyper inflated and a sandwich cost $15K.
It could be high compared to today's standard. In the west, we have pretty close to universal high incomes, compared to a thousand years ago.
No, he's smoking crack again. Money in some form, credits, crypto, fiat etc. will continue to be required until such time that we move away from capitalism to full universalism/communism. Hate to say it, but utopia where everything is taken care of for everyone is literally ideal communism. No one is better or worse, but all are taken care of. Capitalism says otherwise; there are winners and losers and competition says who. They don't mix.
Even in that "ideal" system, money would be more efficient than any alternative rationing system.
Can’t wait for the day he is irrelevant.
That’s probably going to be a while
Elon likes to say dumb stuff.