Elon Musk predicts AI evolution will force money as concept to disappear, working to be optional in less than 20 years

Elon Musk prediction on AI

The tech luminary Elon Musk in a candid interview with Zerodha CEO Nikhil Kamath shared his views about the prospects of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics — its impact on civilization and future of money, energy as de facto currency, how humans can have a positive future with the technology—moreover, he predicts working to be optional in less than 20 years.

“I think in the future, it won't be a case that you have to be in a city for a job. My prediction is that working will be optional. In less than 20 years, maybe 10 to 15 years, the advancement in AI and products will bring us to that point… In a way where you can either grow your own vegetables, or go to the store and buy vegetables— it will be optional in that way,” said Musk.

To the discussion around the future of money, Musk is of the opinion that money is just an information system for labor allocation, and the concept will disappear in future. He says energy will be the de facto currency.

“In the long-term, money disappears as a concept. In the future, anyone can have anything. You will no longer need money as labor allocation. If AI products are big-enough, solving human needs then money's relevance declines dramatically. I'm not sure we will have it.

“Energy is the true currency. This is why Bitcoin is based on energy. You can't legislate energy, or pass a law to sell a lot of energy. We probably won't have money, and probably we will just have energy, power generation as de facto currency,” said Musk.

Kamath asked, if that's the way forward for the U.S by virtue of how much debt they have today, do they deflate away their currency, transition into the new form, and lead that push?

Musk replied, “In this future, the notion of countries will become sort of an anachronistic. These are just what I think will happen based on what I see as opposed to what I think are fundamentally good things. As long as civilization keeps advancing, we will have AI and robotics at a very large scale.

“If real goods and services output increases slower than the money supply, you're in inflation. AI hasn’t made enough of an impact in productivity to increase the goods and services faster than the increase in money supply. We are not there yet.  In three years or less, my guess is goods and services growth will exceed growth in money supply,” said Musk.

While there is an ongoing debate from around the world whether AI is actually beneficial for society, Musk seems to agree that there are dangers associated with the technology, there’s no guarantee that humans will have a positive future with it, and AI developers should ensure that the technology values beauty, truth and curiosity.

“We've got to make sure of that. I think we will have a good future if AI values truth, beauty and curiosity. If AI just learns from the internet where there's a lot of propaganda, it will observe a lot of lies and then have trouble reasoning because these lies are incompatible to reality,” said Musk.