Could Society Exist Without Money?

Robots may soon be able to do all our jobs, but how would that work?

There is a lot of anxiety about our AI future, but there is optimism, too. I know Elon Musk is planning on a future of abundance — where basically everyone is rich — and it is a possibility.

I mean, we have AI that is approaching being able to do any job that involves sitting in front of a computer. And right now many companies are working on robots that, combined with that AI, will in the not-too-distant future be able to do even jobs that require physical work. We’re rapidly approaching a future where, if any work needs to be done, you don’t hire someone — you simply build a worker.

Now, some are seeing this as some apocalypse between the haves and the have-nots, where a few will control all the capital and have no need for anyone else. Poor people can’t even be underpaid servants because robots will still be cheaper and easier to maintain.

The other, happier possibility is basically we’ll all be rich. Since the robots can work tirelessly and produce as much of anything as we want, we’ll basically all be rich and live in abundance. There will not be haves and have-nots because we’ll have so much of everything that money will be basically meaningless — it will be like a Star Trek future with no money.

Let’s focus on this future as it’s more fun to talk about. It sounds pretty great — we’ll all be like those people in Downton Abbey who don’t actually have jobs but just a bunch of people who work for them.

But how mechanically would an abundance future work? It would seem money would have no point when we can just make things, but I don’t see how we can organize without it because the point of money is not just buying things but conveying information.