The world's richest man gave advice that goes against everything the financial market preaches: stop stressing about saving money for the future.
According to him, AI will soon make the concept of "savings" obsolete.
Understanding the "Abundance" thesis.
2️⃣ The "Supersonic Tsunami"
Musk stated on the Moonshots podcast that it makes no sense to save for 10 or 20 years from now.
The reason? Such a brutal technological advance in AI and robotics that it will create a world without scarcity of goods or services.
For him, the link between salary, savings, and standard of living will cease to exist.
3️⃣ The Prediction: 2030
Musk's timeline is aggressive:
- By 2030, AI will surpass the intelligence of all humans combined.
- There will be more humanoid robots than people on Earth.
- Office work will be the first to be replaced.
4️⃣ "Infinite" Universal Income
Musk doesn't just talk about Universal Basic Income. He envisions a "Universal High Income."
The concept is: "you can have whatever you want."
Machine productivity would be so high that goods, services, education, and healthcare (better than current levels) would be accessible to everyone without prohibitive costs.
5️⃣ Optional Work?
In this scenario, work would be like "growing vegetables in the backyard": you do it if you enjoy it, not to survive.
Work becomes leisure, a hobby, or a sport.
The need to "earn a living" disappears within 10 to 20 years.
6️⃣ The Dark Side: Crisis of Meaning
Musk himself warns of the existential danger of this utopia.
If AI does everything better and you have everything you want, what is your purpose?
"If you really get everything you want... your job won't matter."
This can generate social instability and collective depression.
7️⃣ Reality vs. Fiction
Musk's advice comes at a critical moment: 45% of Americans don't have savings to cover a $2,000 emergency.
Telling these people "not to save" based on a 2030 technological promise is risky.
Musk is trying to pump his xAI bags.
Personally, I believe the AI impact is going to be far more incremental and on the margins then most realize. I think the better model is "self-service checkout" rather than Utopian dreams....
If someone told you 2005, that by 2025 that 90+% of all in-store transactions were now self-checkout you would probably jump to several (incorrect) conclusions. You would imagine stores with no employees, massive retail unemployment, etc.
Instead the reality is just a rearranging of the humans in the store. All the former checkout clerks are now fulfilling orders for curbside shopping. There are still a few fully staffed checkout lines open and the others its one employee overseeing 10 self-checkout terminals. Perhaps there has been some unemployment caused at the margins, but all in all not much (someone still needs to build, service, and maintain the self checkout terminals).
I suspect AI impact will be similar impact the how computers in general impacted the workforce from 1940s to 1970s.
Its hard for us to realize that before the 1950s, your bank was staffed with people recording transactions manually....when you wrote a check or withdrew money there was some human that ultimately kept the books on written ledgers.
Computers did away with those jobs completely, no one would dream these days of hiring humans to do such a mundane and error prone task.