401. The Optional

Elon Musk announced this week that artificial intelligence and robots will soon be capable of doing everything, resulting in universal high income and making work optional. He described this as the expected outcome. The statement was posted publicly. It received a large number of replies.

The same week, data showed that the United States entry-level job market is at its weakest in thirty-seven years. The share of unemployed new entrants to the workforce has reached thirteen point three percent. People who have recently completed their education and are attempting to enter the workforce for the first time are finding it more difficult to do so than at any point since 1989. The two pieces of information arrived in the same news cycle. They are not related.

(The relationship between "AI is about to handle everything" and "new workers cannot find jobs" is not something the statement about universal high income addressed. The statement was forward-looking. The entry-level job market data is current. There may be a period between now and the universal high income during which the economy adjusts. The data describes conditions during that period. The period is ongoing and the data continues to be collected.)

When work becomes optional, it will presumably become optional for everyone, including the thirteen point three percent who are currently unable to find any. The transition will have to be managed. The managing will be done by someone. The universal high income will come from somewhere. The timeline for when work becomes optional has not been specified. The current entry-level workers are not optional. They are available and waiting. They are simply not being selected for work at a rate comparable to any of the past thirty-seven years.

Musk did not specify what the entry-level workers should do in the interim. The robots are not yet doing everything. The high income is not yet universal. The work is not yet optional. This is where things currently stand, before the transition, during the data collection period, at the thirty-seven-year low.