Earlier this month, Elon Musk suggested that people don’t need to sock away funds in their 401 (k) anymore because AI will make the scarcity of money a thing of the past.
“If any of the things that we’ve said are true, saving for retirement will be irrelevant,” Musk said of the predicted AI revolution during a recent podcast episode.
He speculated that AI could transform society, creating an abundance of resources that would grant everyone a “universal high income” and the ability to have “whatever stuff they want.”
Our readers don’t seem to be as sold on that vision of what he characterized as the “good future.”
Business Insider Today’s Dan Defrancesco asked newsletter readers whether they trust AI enough to stop saving, and the results were pretty emphatic.
Of the roughly 200 readers who responded, just 6% said they’re not worried about retirement and that they’d let AI handle the future.
Meanwhile, roughly 94% said they would stick with their savings plans rather than bet the farm that an AI revolution would make it moot.
That’s the smart move, financial and technology experts previously told Business Insider.
Seven retirement and AI gurus we spoke to said Americans should be spending more on retirement, not less.
“Most Americans should absolutely ignore these comments,” said Geoffrey Sanzenbacher, a research fellow at Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research (CRR). “Musk’s speculation sends a dangerous and misleading message.”
Others said that technological revolutions haven’t boosted wealth equally across society in the past, and that a potential universal basic income — like the kind Musk is suggesting — would take a coordinated effort from government, not tech leaders.
“That is not a technological problem — it is a coordination problem at the scale of civilization,” said John Nosta, an innovation theorist and the founder of NostaLab.
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