The South African born business man, Elon Musk recently discussed his views of what the future might old for the world’s job market.
Elon Musk has been making headlines since the yearly 2000s for his numerous tech businesses and inventions. Most notably is the work done by his companies Tesla Motors and SpaceX as well as his contribution to the online payment platform PayPal. He is considered one of the greatest tech pioneers of our time, especially due to his work on space travel and self-driving cars.
In a recent interview on America’s CNBC, Musk was asked about the move by Tesla Motors to increase the level of automation in its factories. Elon announced that the automation of work will likely leave lots of workers unemployed.
“I think that there’s a pretty good chance we end up with a universal basic income, or something like that, due to automation,” Musk said.
Musk is not alone in this view. For some time now, leaders in the tech industry have been mumbling about a universal basic income. The idea comes from the fact that technology will allow people to automate more and more functions and that less employees will then be required.
So almost like in Wall-E, machines will be able to manufacture most of what we need and people will thus only receive a standard “allowance” to pay for basic needs.
All is not doom and gloom though, Elon Musk suggest that all these advances in technology will allow people to have more leisure time and will give humans the opportunity to spent more time doing the things they really like to do. According to Musk, the speedy advancements of automation due to technology will also force people to become more creative.
What do you think about the impact of technology on the future of jobs? We would love to hear from you in the comments below.