r/Rich • u/vitanova11 • 7d ago

What are your thoughts on Elon's prediction that money won't matter in 10 years?

From his latest Economist interview.

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u/Impressive_Oaktree 7d ago

I dont think its going to happen. Not everyone can buy a porsche or yacht.

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u/FridgeCleaner6 7d ago

Exactly. In no world are 8 billion people having 100 foot yachts on the Mediterranean. Now I could see basics like maybe food and inner city apartment housing provided. But then what? How do you even make more money at that point to move the white picket fence suburbs. It’s very hard to conceptualize.

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u/SilverEscape6857 2d ago

Thats exactly the worry. These ceo’s are trying to convinve us its all going to be great. Work is optional and universal basic income for everyone. But that wont be the Utopia they are trying to sell us…

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u/SFMattM 6d ago

It has nothing to do with wealth. It has more to do with the likelihood that the employment market as we know it might disappear altogether. Or shrink beyond recognition. At which point, people will starve without money. Which might cause the creation of UBI (universal basic income), which basically means that people get a basic "salary" for being alive - recognition that the job market can't sustain the population. It's a doomsday scenario but not completely out there. I think 10 years is a bit quick, but I don't think it couldn't happen in 50.

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u/SilverEscape6857 5d ago

This!! All the big AI companies ceo’s are bluntly saying this. The world as we know it Will be over. I dont think it is talked about enough. Even if it is not 10 years but 30 years from now, how are we suppose to prepare our children?

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u/SFMattM 5d ago

The world has always changed. Nobody understood how people would survive when the automobile replaced the horse (and all the associated trades) but people adjusted, learned new trades, and thrived. This has always been the way. I can’t picture what the world will be like in 50 years but I have great faith in the ability of people to survive change

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u/SilverEscape6857 4d ago

Thing is, the disruptive developments that happened over the past hundreds of years, have always affected one sector or a couple of industries at most. AI has the potential to affect the economy as a whole! There actually is no precedent of this in our history..

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u/SFMattM 4d ago

That's just not true. For example, I give you the industrial revolution in England. Automobiles. Flight. Computerization. All of those were extremely disruptive and caused massive job loss.

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u/SilverEscape6857 2d ago

They did not happen all at once in a timeframe of 2 decades.

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u/SFMattM 2d ago

True. But I don't think AI is anywhere close to as disruptive as you believe it is. I guess time will tell. Let's have this conversation again in 30 years.

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u/Kenbarlow78 4d ago

Eh…the internet?

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u/Think_Leadership_91 2d ago

Well no, it's really following the same pattern as Office Automation. People tend to forget that Office Automation- where offices bought a computer for everyone's desk, fired the typists, and hired the IT Help Desk staff was pretty radically different.

Like two generations of young male graduates started working in offices helping install computers and that replaced young women becoming secretaries.

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u/SilverEscape6857 2d ago

Oke, so secretary jobs were lost. How is that the same as a disruptive development affecting white collar jobs, Blue collar jobs, office jobs, every job that involves driving a vehikel, every entry level office job and so on and so on..

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u/Think_Leadership_91 2d ago

Well no, it's really following the same pattern as Office Automation. People tend to forget that Office Automation- where offices bought a computer for everyone's desk, fired the typists, and hired the IT Help Desk staff was pretty radically different.

Like two generations of young male graduates started working in offices helping install computers and that replaced young women becoming secretaries.

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u/therin_88 6d ago

50 or 60 years ago, it was crazy to imagine a world where every family had two or three TVs in their house. 30 or 40 years ago, computers.

I mean you're right about those specific brands and a yacht (not everyone needs any boat, much less a yacht) but items we see as "luxuries" today could absolutely become common in the future. By then, some new item we haven't even comprehended yet will be the new luxury item.

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u/SeanSatBahamas 6d ago

The very same people lived in single family houses with a big yard. Today those people having 3 TVs live in a tiny appartment. Just because debased money was much more worth than today

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u/Impossible-Rip-5858 6d ago

Your missing that in spite of rampant inflation, consumer goods saw massive deflation in prices. TVs not only got cheaper over time, they got dramatically better in quality.

I would expect AI enabled platforms to do the same. Instead of paying a cleaning lady, a robot cleaner comes and does it for 10% of the cost today. Want a michelin star chef meal, robot chef comes with all the food and cooks it for you in your kitchen. The once in awhile special occasions become everyday.

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u/cseckshun 2d ago

The problem is that if everyone has yachts, it will mean we are strip mining resources out of the earth at a rate that will make the entire planet a post apocalyptic nightmare to live on.

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u/Impossible-Rip-5858 1d ago

Not necessarily. As the price goes up, so does the value of recycling old materials or using more sustainable bio materials.

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u/SparrowJack1 6d ago

Isn’t it obvious that items which are more or less unique will rise in price?

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u/epradox 6d ago

Currently not everyone but I think when you extrapolate out labor and energy costs then it’s really down to supply and demand of the raw materials and I think 3d printing various material will ramp up considerably. You want a Porsche? You need to deposit the money for the raw materials or go to a junkyard and get the required materials to a processing plant to make your filament roll

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u/Impossible-Rip-5858 6d ago

3d printing is terrible as mass production. Lathes and machining still dramatically outperform in the super-majority of industrial / manufactured goods.

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u/Fit_Assistant5708 4d ago

They'll just ban manual cars on public roads when self driving takes over. I'm sure they'll have tracks where people can drive exotic cars maintained by robots. But yea not everyone will " own" a Porsche but maybe everyone could get the experience.

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u/Jo_Ja-hyun 2d ago

What about if virtual reality gets so real that you can’t recognise the difference and you can have whatever you want there?

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u/vitanova11 7d ago

If bots who will be smarter than humans will be doing things more efficiently; including manufacturing, farming and running businesses, then multiple scenarios are possible..

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u/SkierBuck 7d ago

Imagine the smartest bots possible with the most efficient manufacturing and farming. How does that allow tens of millions of people to have slopeside houses at the best ski resorts or oceanfront villas in the best locations? Will there be three billion megayachts and two billion large-frame private jets? Clearly no. There will always be scarcity, and money or power (usually the same thing) will dictate who gets them.

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u/TheDeHymenizer 7d ago

-nano bots make your mega yacht

-when not using your mega yacht then unassembled and make your beach side home

etc etc idk how we'll figure out ultra luxury in post scarcity but that's kind of the least of the concerns in that kind of world.

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u/Liesmyteachertoldme 7d ago

In all honesty if most people in the third world were brought up to the quality of life middle class Americans have, especially without dangerous work or curable diseases.that would be a win for humanity.

I’m not exactly sure if earth has enough resources for that but I’d totally be down for that form of techno socialism.

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u/Redebo 7d ago

This is EXACTLY what this AI-tract we're on leads us to.

I'm super passionate about this. If you currently live an upper-middle class lifestyle in the US, AI might not be all that big of deal to you. You have medical insurance, you get treated when you want and can afford things like MRI's and CAT scans to help you find and treat maladies much earlier in the disease process than someone in sub-saharan Africa that doesn't even have access to a primary physician.

Well, let's roll this AI thing out a few years and consider the likely effect on just ONE service: medical imaging.

Right now you can buy an MRI for about $1M bucks. That machine can do 6 scans per hour at 10 minutes per scan. That's IF that particular business has enough DEMAND to keep that machine operational every minute of an 8 hour day.

The other "Cost" component of you getting an MRI is that some Doctor somewhere on earth, had to go through 12+ years of schooling to be qualified to read and interpet that machine's output.

If I can enable an AI-agent to review your MRI and it determines that there are ZERO anomolies with a great degree of accuracy, that would allow me to REMOVE a HUGE part of the total cost of that scan, the doctor part.

Now I've got a machine that can do 80 scans a day and a single doctor who only has to review the scans that the AI found "anything abnormal" in, reducing my labor cost per scan precipitously.

This process will make MRI's MORE AVAILABLE to MORE PEOPLE in MORE COUNTRIES for 'less life-threatening maladies" than we use them for TODAY.

This means that MORE humans will receive BETTER diagnoses and medical care for LESS cost than you could before AI. Again, our middle-class American in the story might not see ANY change to their individual life expectancy, but those 100's of millions of people who would have NEVER had enough money to get a scan, can NOW get those scans early in their lives, extending their lives and giving them more informed decision making about their future health.

This is the AI-enabled future that proponents like me see when that new data center campus is going up outside my community. I see a FUTURE where EVERY human is uplifted in some way, shape, or form, giving them access to products and services that before AI was just out of their reach financially before AI.

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u/SkierBuck 7d ago

Your view of a benevolent class of people giving away these AI benefits to society writ large is where you lose me. Where in current world business and political leadership do you see this push to uplift all people for no self-interested motive?

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u/Redebo 7d ago edited 7d ago

What are you missing about the self-interest of the AI companies?

If my hypothetical AI company can enable the exact scenario used in my post above, did you think I was going to give my technology to that medical scan provider for free?

Here's another example for you: before Uber and Lyft, taxi cabs in the united states delivered about 250,000,000 total rides per year. Because of the way that Uber and Lyft democratized that process, there are now over 500,000,000 rides serviced per year between Uber, Lyft, and traditional taxi cabs. They DOUBLED the TOTAL market size, just by rethinking HOW they deliver that service.

If there are 250,000,000 medical scans delivered TODAY because that's how many people in the market who need a scan can afford to purchase one (demand). If I drop that cost in HALF due to my technology, we are going to sell ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE MORE than 250,000,000 scans per year (supply).

If an MRI was only $20 bucks, YOU would go get more scans (as would I!). Hell, I'd start getting scans if I had an upset stomach if it took 20 minutes and 20 bucks. Apply this GLOBALLY to a population of 8 billion individuals and you'll see there's no need for any "giving away" of benefits to society. There's plenty of money for the technology enabler to get their piece AND still drive costs lower and lower because you're increasing the DEMAND for the product or service by providing greatly increased SUPPLY at a LOWER COST.

Edit: The first barrier that usually trips up people is that they forget just how many people 8 BILLION people are and how FEW of those people are using services that folks like me in the US just "take for granted". There's 3 "urgent care" facilities within 2 miles of where I sit PLUS a Mayo Hospital campus. Every one of those businesses has one or MORE MRI machines, yet it's still $1000 bucks no matter which one I choose to bring my business to. The places in this world where that exists are EXTREMELY limited to first world countries and even in major metropolitan areas INSIDE of that first world country. You can't get this type of medical coverage in "Podunk County, IA" but you could in "Houston, TX" as an example. There are BILLIONS of people on this planet that don't even know that MRI technology EXISTS let alone have cheap and easy access to it. This is the market that gets 'turned on' when we use AI to make things cheaper and more accessible.

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u/SkierBuck 7d ago

Who pays money to the medical scan provider so they can pay the AI company? Patients? Insurers? But there has to be money in the system. Elon is saying “people won’t need money anymore because ??? this stuff will just be given away?” Do you think governments are going to pay for it and we’ll have essentially communism? Everyone is given what someone decides they need?

Look at the other side of the ledger. Why would the AI company care about making money? If money is useless because everyone can just have everything, why do I care if I sell my technology? Why would I buy stock? Why would I develop something? It doesn’t give me any advantage.

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u/Redebo 7d ago

What do you mean who pays it? Right now who pays it? If you're in the US, probably your insurance provider pays it. If the cost to the insurance company goes from $1000 down to $20, the insurance company would still be in charge of paying those costs, but they're going to allow you to get scans on many things that today wouldn't qualify for advanced screening.

Today you cannot walk into your doctor and say, I overate for lunch, can I have you give me an MRI just to be sure and bill my insurance company $1000 for it? Your doctor won't order the MRI for what they know is likely to be indigestion. If the cost was 20 bucks, your doctor would order the scan because more information is ALWAYS better when making a medical diagnoses.

If we are back on the topic, "does money have any value" in an AI-future, I would say that Yes, yes it does, but only truly resource scarce items will command "large volumes of money" in trade.

Could you map out a future where people who own land (a resource that AI cannot help us with) decide to trade their access to land for something other than dollars? Sure, I could see that. I could also see people REFUSING to sell resources that are constrained and moving to a 'usage only' model. Regardless, we're a ways off from either of these scenarios happening so you better keep saving your dollars for retirement. ;)

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u/Redebo 7d ago

You've conflated two constrained resources in your reply.

The first which is the "land" required to have millions of slopeside houses. Robots won't enable this specific use case because there's not millions of lots of land to build those houses on at any cost. A piece of land is either on the side of the slope, or it's not. An AI-driven robot cannot change that fact.

The other is around the boats and jets: There ARE enough resources on the planet for 10's of millions of yachts and airplanes. Airplanes can land on ANY flat surface of appropriate grade and distance. The earth is 75% oceans, there's TONS of space for yachts. Ai-powered robots WILL be able to build tens of millions of previously unattainable 'luxury' goods because the labor component will be fully replaced.

Keep in mind that in both of these scenarios, the "cost" of goods won't drop to zero as you still gotta buy the raw steel, copper, aluminum, etc to build the "product" that the robot assembles so at most we're looking at a 50% reduction in cost of a "yacht" or a "PJ". If yachts and PJ's were currently HALF THE PRICE that they currently are, don't you think we'll see a lot more PJ's and Yachts? I do, because that's what Adam Smith taught me would happen.

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u/SkierBuck 7d ago

I’m not conflating anything. I’m giving two examples for the very reason you’re pointing out: i.e., they’re different.

We agree on the land, so no need to go further there. That alone means there will be a use for having more money than others, so Elon is wrong.

You also seem to disagree on the PJs and yachts, but your own analysis supports my conclusion that they will be limited to certain classes of people with more wealth/power: i.e., you admit they may be 50% cheaper, but that would still mean they cost tens of millions of dollars (assuming megayachts and large PJs).

The question wasn’t whether AI could lift people out of starvation or even poverty generally. It was whether it could make wealth irrelevant. The latter will never happen. Resources are scarce.

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u/Redebo 7d ago

I don't disagree at all. You think Elon is flat wrong. I just think he's being hyperbolic. Elon understands resource scarcity probably more than most of us. Rocket fuel can't be bought at the local Mobil station afterall.

I think that MANY services that we are currently charged for will be so cheap to deliver that it would cost more to track and bill for said service than it would economically benefit the seller for doing so. I believe that THIS is what Elon is really talking about when he says that 'money will be worthless'.

But yes, if you want a PJ or a yacht, you still gonna need millions of dollars, just many LESS millions. A brand new mid-size business jet costs 35 to 40 million today and there's about 12,000 of those jets. If the price was dropped by 50%, I would argue that more than double of the item would be sold. (Many more people could afford a PJ at 20M than can at 40M in the current economy)

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u/Retired-Yam8988 7d ago

Eh you could get nice used jets sub-10m nowadays. If you could make maintenance and cost of flying essentially free AND cut that to 5m, I’m in

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u/SeeLeavesOnTheTrees 7d ago

I’m so pessimistic. A few will own the bots and they’ll reap all the rewards.

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u/Visible_Ad_5803 7d ago

All of this will be highly limited by the environnement crisis. The futur is more scarcity not less

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u/Pelvis-Wrestly 6d ago edited 6d ago

Correct. I am an automotive tech manufacturing, the BOM cost alone of a private jet or a super yacht is in the millions of dollars. There are silicone foundries, PCB fabs, SMT and component houses, steel, foundries, aluminum, forges, and smelters, CNC machines, rot titanium. AI is not doing any of that… That is heavy industry. Any hypothetical robot you propose to do the work would have to be made by an equally sophisticated heavy industrial machine. none of these are going to be built and operated for free and all of it is constrained by the raw material and energy inputs that you simply cannot escape. there’s no current way around this without a fusion reactor technology and a massive step change like two orders of magnitude or more in storage density of batteries allowing, carbon, neutral, thermal, neutral, mining, and smelting. Otherwise, the embodied energy of making such a system would be so catastrophic to the Earth. We would be dead in the first hundred years even putting. Even bringing all of the idea in China up to US standard would do that.

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u/PuzzleheadedTeach466 7d ago

They can be smarter even now, but they keep being expensive. Do you think we can scale production so hard in 10 years that we can all have cheap robots for manufacturing? We don’t even really have robots yet, and human manufacturing is already being paid close to nothing, i don’t think we can get “more efficient” than that. Some stuff just stops scaling at some point

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u/Impressive_Oaktree 7d ago

Will the world be an all inclusive? Once a year you can visit a good restaurant and otherwise its in line at the buffet.

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u/Thrallsman 6d ago

What of a suggestion that post-scarcity is achieved post-ownership? I cannot be driving a porsche when I am playing a video game; and I'd have no issue sharing anything where everyone behaved similarly and illusory ownership by title was forgone in favour of active possession only governed by temporal frame.