Elon Musk is many things: entrepreneur, engineer, millionaire buffoon, enfant terrible of techno-futuristic capitalism. But he is also something more disturbing: a postmodern oracle whose voice, when not becoming a trend or cryptocurrency, functions as a thermometer—and sometimes an accelerator—of great civilizational transformations.
In recent weeks, Musk repeated a prediction he has been making for years, but which now, with the brutal acceleration of generative artificial intelligence, takes on another level of gravity: “We won’t need to work. AI will be able to do it all.”
And he wasn’t referring to repetitive or manual jobs, but to all professions. Doctors, lawyers, writers, artists, programmers. All, without exception, will be displaced or relegated to hobbies. Musk doesn’t propose this as a wish, but as an anticipated realization: a sort of “announcement of the end of an era.”
From steam engines to existential unemployment
The 19th century had its own industrial revolution: it replaced muscle with motor. The 21st century replaces brain with code. And that’s not evolution: it’s a quantum leap. Because if previous revolutions generated new sources of employment, this one directly calls into question the very reason for employment itself.
The capitalist model was built on an equation: work = income = dignity. But what happens when work is no longer necessary to produce wealth? What happens when artificial intelligence is capable of designing products, solving equations, composing symphonies, and writing articles better than a journalist?
The answer is dystopian: an era is dawning where human beings (understood as “employees”) are dispensable for the productive machinery. And if dignity was linked to work, the question is stark but unavoidable: what remains of dignity without employment?
The paradise of leisure or the hell of irrelevance?
Musk, faithful to his rhetoric somewhere between the messianic and the technocratic, affirms that “the challenge of the future will be finding meaning.” Because if AI solves all logistical, scientific, creative, and operational problems, what will we humans do? Live? But live for what purpose, if life “as we have known it” no longer requires doing anything?
Here a brutal paradox emerges: the end of work is not emancipation, but the risk of a crisis of purpose. Modern societies are not prepared for mass leisure. Without structure, without goals, without the need to produce, free time can become a dangerous abyss.
Musk knows this. That’s why, in the same forum where he delivered his prophecy, he proposed a universal basic income as a cushion against the impending labor disruption. But what he doesn’t say—or says it between the lines—is that this income doesn’t buy meaning. It may guarantee survival, but not purpose.
Professions as Cultural Identity
Beyond the economic, professions are symbolic systems. They are forms of belonging. A doctor isn’t just someone who heals: they’re someone who represents knowledge, ethics, and social commitment. The same goes for a teacher, an architect, or a journalist.
AI can emulate functions, but it can’t assume meaning. It can diagnose illnesses, but not build bonds. It can write poems, but not experience anguish. It can replace functions, but it can’t be a subject.
And yet, it will be enough to make many of us unnecessary. In fact, it’s already happening; you just have to be willing to see it.
This isn’t the first time Musk has made predictions that seem like something out of a cyberpunk dystopia. Nor is it the first time he’s been right. The problem isn’t what Musk says, but what most people refuse to listen to.
While 20th-century labor laws are being debated, the 21st century is already rendering them obsolete. While governments debate pensions and retirement plans, AI is being trained to retire everyone. While millions are looking for work, the system no longer needs workers.
And then, like a Greek tragedy, the warning was issued, but no one wanted to heed it. Because accepting the end of “traditional” professions isn’t just accepting unemployment, but accepting that the future will be less human than we think.
Or, more brutally, accepting that the future may not include us.
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