“It’s a classic Musk pivot,” Faiz Siddiqui, author of “Hubris Maximus: The Shattering of Elon Musk,” told The Post. “You have a company [Tesla] that has established a foothold in the industry, it’s stock has out-performed expectations and it now faces short-term challenges with the backlash to Tesla. Now for it to pivot to humanoid robots is a big leap and a big gamble. Musk does a thing where he over promises and shoots for the moon. But, even if he misses, he might land among the stars.”
A Universal Basic Income (UBI) would be central to the conceit. While robots do all the work, humans would collect regular, unconditional cash payments from the government. Proponents like tech and longevity entrepreneur — and longtime Musk buddy — Peter Diamandis believe that companies will make such high profits from AI running the show — and save so much cash by using robot slaves instead of employing humans — that massive taxes will bankroll UBI. Everyone will be able live a basic but comfortable life without needing to work for it. Those who want more will have the option of monetizing their passions, pursuing entrepreneurial endeavors or putting time into creative gambits.
“Think of it as an expanded version of the Covid [stimulus] checks,” Diamandis, the co-author of “Abundance: The Future is Better than You Think” and host of the Abundance Summit, told The Post. “People will get some amount of capital and we’ll be likely to see a huge increase in the gross domestic product.”