{"id":90082,"date":"2026-04-15T06:00:01","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T10:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=90082"},"modified":"2026-04-11T17:26:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T21:26:22","slug":"a-world-without-work-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2026\/04\/a-world-without-work-2\/","title":{"rendered":"A World Without Work?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve blogged<\/a> about the forecasters who are predicting that AI will make white collar jobs obsolete, with Palentir CEO\u00a0Alex Karp<\/a> saying that the only occupations with a future will be the blue collar trades.<\/p>\n

Elon Musk goes even further, saying that the blue collar jobs are also doomed, that the robots that he is developing\u2013animated by what is being called \u201cphysical AI<\/a>\u201c\u2013will take over all manual labor as well.<\/p>\n

\n

But this will be a good thing.\u00a0 Musk says<\/a> that in 10 or 20 years, all human work will be unnecessary.\u00a0 He told an investment forum:\u00a0\u201cMy prediction is that work will be optional.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sure, you can work if you want to, as a hobby:<\/p>\n

It\u2019ll be like playing sports or a video game or something like that,\u201d Musk said. \u201cIf you want to work, [it\u2019s] the same way you can go to the store and just buy some vegetables, or you can grow vegetables in your backyard. It\u2019s much harder to grow vegetables in your backyard, and some people still do it because they like growing vegetables.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But no one will need to work.\u00a0 With machines taking over all human labor, he said<\/a>, we will enjoy a time of \u201camazing abundance.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cWith the continued growth of AI and robotics,\u201d he said, \u201cwe actually are headed to a future of universal high income.\u201d\u00a0 Without working for it!\u00a0 \u201cThere would be no shortage of goods or services.\u201d<\/p>\n

How would that work, having access to unlimited goods and services without working?\u00a0 OpenAI CEO Sam Altman<\/a> has been advocating that the government pay everyone a universal income.\u00a0 Way back in 2016, six years before the launch of ChatGPT, he wrote, \u201cI\u2019m fairly confident that at some point in the future, as technology continues to eliminate traditional jobs and massive new wealth gets created, we\u2019re going to see some version of this at a national scale.\u201d\u00a0 With no one having to work, we would all be wards of the state.\u00a0 We would all be on welfare, with no taxpayers to support us.\u00a0 Yet abundance would be so amazing, thanks to our AI masterminds and robotic servants, we could have whatever we want.<\/p>\n

Actually, though, as Musk<\/a> is realizing, \u201cMy guess is, if you go out long enough\u2014assuming there\u2019s a continued improvement in AI and robotics, which seems likely\u2014money will stop being relevant.\u201d Everyone will just be able to take whatever they want for free.\u00a0 But the left\u2019s dream of economic equality would become a reality.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the classic definition <\/a>of the economy has to do with the allocation of limited resources to meet unlimited wants and needs. But if the resources are no longer limited, the economy would cease to exist.\u00a0 Marx looked forward to the withering away of the state; Musk is looking forward to the withering away of the economy.<\/p>\n

But in this techno-utopia, what would human beings do<\/em>?\u00a0 Just sit around?\u00a0 Read AI-generated books, listen to AI-generated music, and watch AI-generated TV?\u00a0 What would be the pleasure in that?\u00a0 How could we handle the boredom?<\/p>\n

Without work, what would happen to our creativity, initiative, drive, achievement, and other qualities that have always marked human beings at our best?\u00a0 What would be left of us?<\/p>\n

At another forum,\u00a0Musk said this<\/a>, repeating his vision of life without work, but then recognizing a problem with this:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a benign scenario, probably none of us will have a job,\u201d Musk said. \u201cThere will be universal high income \u2013 and not universal basic income \u2013 universal high income. There\u2019ll be no shortage of goods or services.\u201d. . .<\/p>\n

\u201cThe question will really be one of meaning,\u201d he said. \u201cIf a computer can do, and the robots can do everything better than you, does your life have meaning? That really will be the question in that benign scenario.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To be sure, our lives have meaning apart from how well we do at our work.\u00a0 That is no doubt how Musk finds meaning in his life, but this is a poignant admission.\u00a0 Ironic, too, all this talk of eliminating work and money coming from the richest man on the planet.\u00a0 But he\u2019s right that a life without work would take away our sense of purpose.\u00a0 And, I would add, our sense of satisfaction.<\/p>\n

Now I don\u2019t think these predictions will come true.\u00a0 In addition to a host of practical problems\u2013who will set up the AI networks?\u00a0 who will supervise the robots?\u00a0 who will engineer the necessary infrastructure for all of this?\u2013there are more basic human issues.\u00a0 Human beings want<\/em> to work and need<\/em> to work.\u00a0 We are glad to work with technology as long as it is a tool, not something that makes our lives worse.<\/p>\n

Above all, our technology is not going to eliminate human labor because God has designed us to work.\u00a0 He has not changed His created order:\u00a0 \u201cThe Lord<\/span> God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it\u201d (Genesis 2:15).\u00a0 And He has not lifted His curse:\u00a0 \u201cBy the sweat of your face <\/span>you shall eat bread\u201d (Genesis 3:19).\u00a0 And He has not changed His provision for us:\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>\u201cSo I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work\u201d\u00a0 (Ecclesiastes 3:22).<\/p>\n

Nor has He changed His way of working through human beings to care for those whom He has created.\u00a0 That is, to say, He has not cancelled the doctrine of vocation.\u00a0 He still wants us to love and serve our neighbors through our work, what we do for them.\u00a0 He will continue to call human beings to marriage, parenthood, and the other vocations in the estate of the family.\u00a0 He will continue to make us interdependent on each other by giving us vocations in the economic order.\u00a0 He will continue to hold society together by calling us to citizenship and government in the estate of the state.\u00a0 And He will continue to call pastors and laypeople in the estate of the church.<\/p>\n

This is how God has chosen to operate in His temporal realm.\u00a0 Eternity will be different, in ways we cannot even comprehend.\u00a0\u00a0\u201c\u2018Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on,\u2019\u201d we are told.\u00a0 \u201c\u2019Blessed indeed,\u2019\u201d says the Spirit, \u2018that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!\u2019\u201d (Revelation 13:14).\u00a0 There we will rest, and yet, our deeds will somehow follow us. This will be a rest of fulfillment, of contemplation, of relationships\u2013all of which will be a function of what God has made of us in our lives on earth.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Photo:\u00a0 Bored People<\/a> by Tima Miroshnichenko: https:\/\/www.pexels.com\/photo\/bored-people-on-a-birthday-party-5804997\/ via Pexels, Public Domain<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some are predicting that AI will take over all white collar jobs and robots will take over all blue collar jobs. In a new social order, humans will get everything they want for free. 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