The Future

"Forecasting the future is a tricky thing ... obvious events take forever ... unexpected things happen overnight." -- Anon.

Elon Musk, the charismatic leader of the Tesla, Solar City and SpaceX companies has donned his tinfoil hat to make some interesting predictions about mankind's future. In particular he believes that robots eventually will do just about everything and people will just sit around doing whatever they like ... no jobs, just plenty of leisure time. In an interview with CNBC, he also touted the idea of an universal basic income ... supplied by the government since few would be working for pay ... see: CNBC Story.

Yes, I suppose that someday in the far distant future robots and AI will have altered our lives to a considerable degree, but I somehow doubt that it will be to the degree and in the way Musk envisions. Most humans have a trope that seems to compel them to "work" toward improving their living space. I somehow doubt that armies of robots will diminish this instinct.

A few more points:

- If few people are actually working, how will governments get the money to pay an universal basic income? Tax accumulated capital? If so, what happens when all accumulated capital is depleted? Or could they tax robots? Effectively taxing businesses twice.

- Musk's notion of a fully robotic world would eliminate "cheap labor" economies ... which, in turn, would obviate the need to transport finished goods around the world. All that would be moved from distant place to place would be raw materials and possibly foodstuffs. Might this make for a more insular world ... with resulting tensions? I suppose it might.

- As raw materials on this Earth are depleted I also suppose that Musk's notion of a space travel imperative makes some sense. However, colonizing other inhospitable planets is a challenge that boggles the imagination. Using current science, the cost-benefit analyses of such efforts seems to me futile. Most futurists and science fiction writers conveniently dismiss many of these hurdles. Too many. This future dream might well just be that. A challenge that may prove the limit to humankind's ambitions.

- All this assumes that civilization will not suffer another random shock ... say another plague or ice age ... which plunges us back into another regressive period.  (Global warming would be much easier to deal with.)

Futurists, such as Musk, tend to forecast along a straight-line into our tomorrows ... it is because it is the most obvious. But assembling all the possible variables and accounting for them is almost impossible. Therefore the future is almost always a surprise ... as it should be.