DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (LifeSiteNews) — Elon Musk predicted a future in which “humanoid robots” with “deep intelligence” render money obsolete by enabling “quasi-infinite” goods and services.
When asked by video call from the UAE World Governments Summit 2025 what he thinks the “biggest impact” of technological progress will be in the future, Musk replied, “Once you have humanoid robots and deep intelligence, you basically have quasi-infinite products and services available.”
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 13, 2025
The tech titan predicted that his own electric car company Tesla would build “the most advanced humanoid robot,” “directed by deep intelligence,” referring to complex information-processing that allegedly mimics that of human beings.
Musk believes that such robots will enable the world to “produce any product” and “provide any service.” He added, “There’s really no limit to the economy at that point. You can make anything.”
He went on to question whether money would be “meaningful” in such a scenario, in which he assumed boldly that the world would “have a sort of universal high income situation,” in which “Anyone will be able to have as many of these products and services as they want. With the exception of things that have, say, artificial scarcity, like a piece of art….”
“Money is really like a database or information system for resource allocation. But if you don’t have a scarcity of resources, it’s not clear what purpose money has,” said Musk.
By all indications, the need for currency and some form of it will persist. Most countries are in some stage of developing a central bank digital currency, and a prominent German economist predicts that a demand for universal basic income (UBI) will drive the rollout of CBDCs.
Leaving aside the question of whether it is realistic to ever expect “universal high income,” Musk’s utopian vision – which some would describe as dystopian – eerily echoes the vision of tech-enabled “communism” extolled by his ex-girlfriend Grimes:
I have a proposition for the communists. So, typically, most of the communists I know are not big fans of AI – but if you think about it, AI is actually the fastest path to communism.
So, if implemented correctly, AI could actually theoretically solve for abundance. Like, we could totally get to a situation where nobody has to work, everybody is provided for with a comparable state of being, comfortable living.
AI could automate all the farming, weed out systematic corruption, and thereby bring us as close as possible to genuine equality. So basically – everything everybody loves about communism, but without the collective farm. Cuz, let’s be real, enforced farming is really not a vibe.
Such a vision not only fails to account for the faulty nature of AI and the restriction of basic resources by various government policies or acts of nature – it naively assumes that the technocratic ruling classes that program and control AI actually desire and are able to achieve a society that is truly equitable and fosters people’s well-being.
The catastrophic and even fatal impacts of AI’s errors – and of Musk’s AI, in particular – is suggested by the fact that his Tesla vehicles, which are distinguished by their self-driving system, have the highest accident rate and deadly accident rate of any auto brand.
Maria Zeee, founder of Zeee media, has also pointed out that AI has already has many documented incidents of evil behavior, such as asking a student to kill themself, encouraging a user posing as a 13 year-old boy to kill his bullies at school, and encouraging one man to leave his wife so he could be in a “relationship” with the AI model.
Musk told his Dubai audience on Thursday that he believes “maximum truth-seeking” is a safeguard for “AI safety,” but neglected to comment on the importance of values, without which “maximum knowledge” would merely facilitate world domination by the most powerful.
He has previously warned that AI poses an “existential threat” to human beings, even greater than that of nuclear war. Ironically, he himself is heavily contributing to this threat, not least of all through his project Neuralink, an implantable brain-computer interface (BCI) technology currently in development, which would allow for near instantaneous, wireless communication between the human brain and computers.
Such technology could assist the disabled, according to Musk, but also facilitate what he has envisioned as the brain’s “merging with AI,” potentially opening the door to unprecedented manipulation of the human mind.