Indulge me for the coming delusion, but if we ignore who this is, forget all the reasons we know that we can’t trust him, and allow ourselves just a few moments to hope that we could live in such a world.
A world where manual labor is no longer needed, where people can just exist as large mammals are meant to exist. Robots will handle it all and we can just do as we please… and the robots are going to be plentiful because once enough of the process of making a robot becomes automated, the cost of it will go to zero. But to get there it is going to require a ton of money… these robots are going to be way too expensive for people to actually buy them, so investors and governments will help out. The investors will eventually lose everything, but that will put us on the way to having everything we need to be created through completely automated systems.
Of course, there will still be jobs for those who really want them - or more likely, who want them and are good at them - or even more likely, who knows the right people… but if we can get our basic needs taken care of it night not fully end poverty but it would be a step in the right direction.
But, alas… It’s Musk saying it so it’s only to further enrich himself and won’t actually happen.
The only way a world like this could happen is if the governments get onboard and do a UBI or similar thing.
What’s going to happen is the robots will get made (by someone, eventually) workforces will start laying people off and there won’t be anywhere near enough jobs.
Now there’s 2 options for the USA
Government steps in does something to support people to have a comfortable (not poverty life)
Government bends to the corpos and does nothing and poverty and suffering skyrockets.
For the USA at least, I can’t see them doing #1. It would take a revolution to make a change like that happen, and it’d be bloody.
Yeah, all this automation with robots and AIs could (and should) be good for all people. All it takes is distributing the value of that automated labor to all of them and not enrich a few selfish fucks. Of course none of them realize (or say aloud) that for that to happen, all the money their companies gain needs to be taken from them again (or they need to give it voluntarily).