#29
Will there be universal high income / abundance?
Interviews
6
Answers
6
X posts
11
Span
2024 to 2026
First asked Jan 6, 2024, most recently Sep 25, 2026. Excerpts below are from machine transcripts with filler words (um, uh, you know) and stutters removed; … marks a cut. They are not checked word for word, so use the link to hear the exact words, or the transcript link for the raw text. Timestamps: 2 cross-checked against YouTube captions, 3 from the archive transcript only, 1 unverified caption-only. X has no link-to-time option, so X links open at the start.
How the answer evolved · oldest first
Jan 6, 2024 · Moonshots with Peter Diamandis · asked by Peter Diamandis
Q: You know, we're, we're creating abundance of food, energy, water, healthcare, education. Are we constrained in any way?
No, not really. I mean, no, I think I agree with you that the future most likely has abundance. We shouldn't be complacent about the future. Complacency and entitlement are not a recipe for success. But the most likely outcome is one of abundance of goods and services. That is certainly where we're headed.
Oct 29, 2024 · Future Investment Initiative · asked by Interviewer
Q: When we spoke last in March at the Abundance Summit, your prediction was that AI was increasing at a rate as fast as 100 times per year, and that by 2029 or 2030, we might see AI as capable as 8 billion humans. Are you still seeing that …
Yeah, it's been. It's difficult. It's a difficult thing to quantify. Exactly. But I certainly feel comfortable saying that it's getting 10 times better per year, which is let's say it's four years from now. That would mean 10,000 times better. So maybe 100,000. Yeah. And it's. It's. I think it'll be able to. Anything that any human can do, possibly within the next year or two, and then what. What can.
Jun 19, 2025 · Elon Musk: Digital Superintelligence, Multiplanetary Life, How to Be Useful · asked by unknown
Q: Well, so how do we direct that to sort of super abundance? You know, we could have robotic labor, we have cheap energy, intelligence on demand. Is that sort of the white pill? Like where do you sit on the spectrum? And are there tangible things that you would encourage everyone here to be working on to make that white pill actually reality?
I think it most likely will be a good outcome. I guess I'd sort of agree with Geoff Hinton that maybe it's a 10 to 20% chance of annihilation. But look on the bright side, that's 80 to 90% probability of a great outcome. So, yeah, I can't emphasize this enough. A rigorous adherence to truth is the most important thing for AI safety. And obviously empathy for humanity and life as we know it.
Jan 6, 2026 · Moonshots · asked by Peter Diamandis
Q: So can you go through the rationale of uhi? How does universal high income work?
Okay, so there's going to be more intelligence, digital intelligence, than all human intelligence combined and more humanoid robots than all humans. And assuming we're in a benign scenario, Star Trek sort of Roddenberry, not Cameron situation.
Mar 18, 2026 · Abundance Summit · asked by Peter Diamandis
Q: So, you know, we talked about a time frame of civil unrest, you know, two, three, four, five years, probably a lot of COVID like checks in the interim until we get to a demonetization and a, you know, deflation that leads us to uhi. Any …
I mean, to be clear, I don't think we should be sort of complacent. We do need to be careful because the future is a range of possible outcomes and they're not all great. But at this point, I do agree with you that it's likely to be great. It's probably 80% likely, maybe more likely to be great. And I do think we'll have universal high income. We're basically just issuing money to people. And really just because the …
Sep 25, 2026 · Interview with CCTV · asked by CMG interviewer
Q: If money will not be, for example, like a tool for exchange in that kind of world, how do you think that we can try to prevent, you know, the only a handful few tech giants in, you know, controlling the all the resources is specifically …
Yeah, what I'm trying to say is that I think that there will be a level of abundance that is more than anyone could possibly consume. I mean, I think it's going to get pretty wild like where if you want a castle, robots will build you a castle. So it's not like it's not as though the robots will be hoarded by a small number of people. Actually the robots I think will be. They will saturate on human demand, meaning …
In his own posts on X
@elonmusk · Dec 26, 2023
There will be universal high income, not basic, in a positive AI future. No scarcity, except that which we define to be scarce. In that scenario, everyone can have whatever goods & services they want. It is less clear how we will find meaning in a world where work is optional.
View on X ↗@elonmusk · May 19, 2024
@MarioNawfal There will be universal high income (not basic)
View on X ↗@elonmusk · Aug 24, 2025
@zdenDuran14 @davidpattersonx There will be universal high income (not merely basic income). Everyone will have the best medical care, food, home, transport and everything else. Sustainable abundance.
View on X ↗@elonmusk · Oct 20, 2025
@PeterDiamandis Working will be optional in the future. There will be universal high income.
View on X ↗@elonmusk · Nov 16, 2025
Optimus will eliminate poverty and provide universal high income for all https://t.co/ZfKSOuQvrq
View on X ↗@elonmusk · Dec 17, 2025
@RayDalio It is certainly a nice gesture of the Dells, but there will be no poverty in the future and so no need to save money. There will be universal high income.
View on X ↗@elonmusk · Jan 29, 2026
@gtagmemes @teslaownersSV There will be universal high income and childcare and I love humanity and don’t want us all to die out
View on X ↗@elonmusk · Mar 15, 2026
@_kaitodev @garrytan @karpathy All jobs will be optional. There will be universal high income.
View on X ↗@elonmusk · Apr 16, 2026
Universal HIGH INCOME via checks issued by the Federal government is the best way to deal with unemployment caused by AI. AI/robotics will produce goods & services far in excess of the increase in the money supply, so there will not be inflation.
View on X ↗@elonmusk · Sep 14, 2026
A welfare state and free immigration will obviously bankrupt any country. AI + robotics is the only path to universal high income for everyone on Earth. https://t.co/8ntezoT2nj
View on X ↗@elonmusk · Sep 19, 2026
@amuse If that is truly her position, she is simply not smart. To paraphrase Milton Friedman: you can have open borders OR a welfare state, but you can’t have both without going bankrupt! This will however change when AI and robots are ubiquitous, as there will be universal high income.
View on X ↗
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