The Future of Retirement

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November

November

Yes Sir, Captain Tightpants
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Elon Musk has claimed that people will soon no longer need to worry about saving for retirement, believing that, in the future, everyone will be on a “universal high income”.
The world’s richest person made the outlandish comments during a recent episode of the Moonshots with Peter Diamandis podcast.

“One side recommendation I have is: Don’t worry about squirrelling money away for retirement in 10 or 20 years,” the Tesla CEO said.

“It won’t matter.

“If any of the things that we’ve said are true, saving for retirement will be irrelevant.”
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This utopian world is at complete odds with a recent prediction from a man known as the “godfather of AI”, who issued an ominous warning about the disproportionate impact the technology is likely to have on the world.

Geoffrey Hinton is a renowned computer scientist who was awarded the 2024 Nobel prize in Physics.

He is celebrated for developing neural networks, which helped lay the foundation behind many of today’s artificial intelligence (AI) models, including ChatGPT, facial recognition and self-driving cars.

In an interview with the Financial Times in September, Professor Hinton claimed AI advancements could result in widespread job losses, leading to people becoming “poorer”.

“What’s actually going to happen is rich people are going to use AI to replace workers,” he said.

“It’s going to create massive unemployment and a huge rise in profits. It will make a few people much richer and most people poorer.”
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What do ya rekon? Will retirement funds become useless? Is Elon right? Or is he living in a dreamworld?
 
These wild predictions of companies using AI and robotics to eliminate employees don't take into account one thing: where are their customers going to come from? A lot of businesses do not work without having the general public as customers. The automotive companies ran into that problem with the unions and sold the unions on the idea of having the robots pay union dues, so unions are just a relic of the age of steam and offer no help whatsoever. The same will happen with AI.

It will be difficult to sell industry on the need to give up a portion of their income to support the general public even if it is necessary for their industry to survive.

A friend of mine is a hairdresser. A robot could be made to do generalized hairstyles but in general, it would be cheaper to keep this as a human job than to build a multi-million dollar robot to do the same. And as styles change, the robot would have to keep up. And AI would not develop new styles - creativity is expensive to program and you would end up with a limited selection of hairstyles like they have in North Korea.

In fact, people are finding the opposite - young people now cannot expect to ever retire. They just cannot build the savings.
 
Joan the Vampire Slayer
Joan the Vampire Slayer
Bartending is also a job that can't be taken by robots - thank god.
Yes, perhaps the fundamental concept of capitalism is selling lots of stuff to lots of people. Eliminating workers won't create huge profits, because no-one will have the money to buy anything. Companies tend to look at only them eliminating workers as costs; they don't consider what it does to the marketplace if every single company does the same. And where do the huge bonuses come from if there are no sales? You may end up, briefly, with a bunch of very rich people and a lot of people with no money. Until everyone else decides to see if those very rich people can fly.
 
November said:
What do ya rekon? Will retirement funds become useless? Is Elon right? Or is he living in a dreamworld?
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Yeah, I wouldn't cash out your retirement funds for a global cruise just yet! I don't want to make this political, but I find it really surprising that Elon is blithely assuming there will be a government-paid universal income, when his latest project was trying to vastly reduce government spending. And while I have heard of small-scale experiments for this - for instance, one city offering monthly payments to some low-income people - I don't really see it happening universally. Too much opposition, too much revenue required.

Ethan Reigns said:
These wild predictions of companies using AI and robotics to eliminate employees don't take into account one thing: where are their customers going to come from? A lot of businesses do not work without having the general public as customers.
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Even Henry Ford, as robber-baron capitalist as they come, understood that if you want to sell your products, you have to pay your workers enough to afford them!
 
Elon is a out of touch, deluded idiot, and giving that kind of misguided advice is irresponsible. Of course people should still, if able, save for retirement.

As for universal income, it's a great idea, but sadly that would never pass in this country, though some cities, including Tacoma, Washington, where I used to live, have tried it on a small scale.
 
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NotASlayer
NotASlayer
Rich dudes who were born into money literally have no idea what the real world is like for most. Which is one reason they make terrible leaders.
Well as long as the world does go bust before I die I see lots of wood carving and music making in my continued retirement future.
Yes, the younger generation is going to have a hard way to go in trying to save for their future.
Joan the Vampire Slayer said:
As for universal income, it's a great idea, but sadly that would never pass in this country, though some cities, including Tacoma, Washington, where I used to live, have tried it on a small scale.
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I wouldn't say sadly but thankfully. Universal Income system is nothing more than all out communism with a different name. Definitely not going to happy in this country for sure. We've seen throughout history that socialist/Communistic systems do not work and we would be smart to pay more attention to those lessons already learned.
 
Moptop said:
I wouldn't say sadly but thankfully. Universal Income system is nothing more than all out communism with a different name. Definitely not going to happy in this country for sure. We've seen throughout history that socialist/Communistic systems do not work and we would be smart to pay more attention to those lessons already learned.
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Communism is actually a beautiful idea... on paper. Unfortunately, at present human nature works against it.

But note that in Star Trek beginning with TNG, they basically work on a universal income situation, just without the physical income. Everyone has access to food, shelter, and healthcare. But humans (for the most part) have undergone a fairly significant mindset change.
 
Most so called communist countries weren't really true communism
 
NotASlayer
NotASlayer
No-one knows if communism works because no-one has tried it yet.
I read it as no one will have to be self reliant in retirement. Advancements in AI will mean that all needs are met. Yeah, dreamworld.

I suppose no one is really self reliant anyway. Those who work rely on the boss to give them a paycheck, to see them as valuable enough to give them work hours. In turn the business relies on people who pay for the goods and services. Everyone relies on each other to play their part.

I'm already on the outside of that. Unreliable and completely dependent. There is no superannuation, no nest egg at 67 for me. I dont have a lot of choices, whatever the powers that be decide is a livable income is what I get. So I was hopeful for at least basic needs to be met, with whatever welfare I get. But my needs are different to others, so I guess thats where the issue of how much is liveable comes into it, let alone luxury. Its more expensive to be disabled. If there is a universal income, I'm still left behind.
 
Of course Elon Musk is going to give you the blue sky prediction because he is trying to silence the critics of AI and eliminate any regulations on its usage. He know this will be disruptive and he wants to steamroll over any objections until it becomes impossible to avoid the AI juggernaut. After that, no objections will be possible. Still, I think the universal deployment of AI is going to stall when the costs exceed that of actual workers.
 
Ethan Reigns said:
Still, I think the universal deployment of AI is going to stall when the costs exceed that of actual workers.
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An AI crash already looks to be on the horizon, and that's not even considering the sheer power drain that AI is taking. Companies are talking about building power plants, just to run AI. Nothing else.
 
Oh really, how could anyone think negative thought about Elon Musk?
Just because he has a stupid name?
Just because that electric car he designed is the ugliest car ever?
Just because he was best mate with that Trump wack job?
Just because he like a nut job.

Then on the bright side he . . um . . . er . . . yeah! Maybe all the scam merchants will target him, just because.
 
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