Rafomac News, Tech & Trends That MatterElon Musk predicts money might lose its value within a decade. But OpenAI’s Sam Altman isn’t so sure. With AI poised to change everything, how will we earn and spend money in the future?
When Elon Musk claimed money might become irrelevant in just 10 years, many were left wondering: is he onto something, or missing the mark? Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, offers a grounded perspective. While he agrees that prosperity and abundance could skyrocket as AI makes goods and services cheaper, he insists money will still matter in the near future.
“The spirit of what Elon was trying to say is that AI can create incredible abundance,” Altman explains. “But clearly, money will still be essential as a way to allocate resources and value those goods and services that AI helps produce.”
So what does the future really look like? A recent research paper by Daniel Kohrt, an OpenAI expert, lays out two very different scenarios for the AI-driven world of 2040.
The optimistic vision is a world where AI and robots handle nearly every job—from curing diseases to farming food. This means costs drop, health care improves, and poverty could effectively disappear. But this vision raises a pressing question: if AI does all the work, how do humans earn money?
One answer: universal basic income (UBI). Governments would heavily tax AI companies controlling vast data centers, powerful chips, and robots. The revenue collected would then be distributed evenly among adult citizens. Alaska already demonstrates an early version of this, paying residents through dividends from natural resources.
Kohrt’s report suggests this UBI could start around $45,000 a year and rise to $1 million by 2030. By 2040, some estimates even push that figure as high as $13 million per person annually. Imagine earning that much without working a day.
Yet the hopeful future has a darker twin. If the AI arms race accelerates unchecked, humanity could lose control over the technology. Kohrt warns that an elite few could command AI power beyond any government’s reach—raising risks of massive inequality, societal upheaval, or worse, existential threats to humanity itself.
In response, the paper proposes “Plan A”: a coordinated slowdown between the two leading AI powers, America and China. The idea mirrors the Cold War’s nuclear arms de-escalation, acknowledging AI’s potential to be as world-altering—and as dangerous—as nuclear weapons.
This uneasy balance between prosperity and peril remains the defining challenge of our AI future. With the stakes this high, everyone—from policymakers to everyday citizens—must consider what kind of world we want emerging from this AI revolution.
Curious about the details? Watching the full breakdown reveals just how these scenarios flicker between promise and peril. Are we headed toward a future where AI enriches all or replaces us altogether? The answer may well shape the next two decades of human life.
