What happens when robots take on everyone's jobs? It is the question about office chatter, think pieces and late-night doomscrolling. People climb to find “AI-proof” career, but with predictions that automation could replace almost every role, the fear feels justified.
Elon MuskHowever, however, it does not lose sleep. He has been repeating for years that society not only needs a universal basic income – it needs something bigger: universally high income.
The last memory came after Tech commentator David Scott Patterterson claimed that by 2030: “All jobs will be replaced by AI and robots.” Musk replied: “Your estimates are about good. Intelligent robots in the humanoid form, however, will far exceed the population of people, because each person wants his own personal R2-D2 and C-3PO. And then there will be many robots in industry for every person to deliver products and services.”
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That led another user to ask the obvious: “When robots are replacing people working, how will those who become unemployed to maintain their lives?”
Musk's answer: “There will be universally high income (not only basic income). Everyone will have the best medical care, food, home, transport and everything else. Sustainable abundance.”
It is a daring promise – and one that he repeated for years. Where most politicians discuss UBI as a modest safety net, Musk insists that the future requires something much more generously. He emphasizes “high” because, according to him, the basis is not good enough if machines can handle almost all workers.
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But the natural follow-up is uncomfortable: who pays for it? America is already buried under trillions of debts and the financing of a system where “everyone has the best of all” would mean that the entire economic structure is reconsider. Critics claim that it is a fantasy without a tax base to support it, while others prevent that automation could generate the required wealth itself.
Skeptics point to today's struggles as a warning sign. If the government cannot fully finance the social security or medicine, how realistic is it to expect that a brand new universal income is a “high” plots appear? As one answer reflected: “If our government cuts social security and medicine, why do you make it believe that they will argue for universal income – high or otherwise?”
