Elon Musk predicts ‘working will be optional’ within 10–20 years due to AI and Robotics

Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk has predicted that rapid advances in artificial intelligence and robotics could make work optional within the next 10 to 20 years.

Musk’s vision underscores a future where human labor may no longer be a necessity for survival, with automation and AI potentially reshaping global economies and societal structures.

Musk, during a conversation with Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath on People by WTF podcast, released on Sunday (November 30), said, “My prediction is that, in the future, working will be optional. People can play this back in 20 years and say it was wrong, but I think it will be correct. In less than 20 years, maybe even 10 or 15, advances in AI and robotics will bring us to a point where working is optional.”

Comparing work to growing vegetables

To illustrate his vision, Musk compared future work to the choice of growing vegetables at home versus buying them from a store.

“In the same way that you can grow your own vegetables or go to a shop and buy them, it’s much harder to grow your own. Some people enjoy it, which is fine. But it is optional—that is how I see work in the future,” he said.

Technology and access to goods

Musk further noted that technological advances could make goods and services readily available to everyone.

“I’m confident that if AI and robotics continue to advance—and they are advancing very fast—working will be optional, and people will have any goods and services they want. If you can think of it, you can have it,” he said.