Elon Musk once warned that artificial intelligence (AI) could become humanity’s greatest existential threat. Now he imagines the same technology making money almost meaningless. Yuval Noah Harari sees a different danger: before AI makes us richer, it may make us less free.
Their recent conversations with The Economist offer two contrasting visions. Musk looks at what AI can produce. Harari asks what it might do to human agency. Both agree AI will transform civilization. The question is what humans may lose.
In a conversation with The Economist’s editor-in-chief Zanny Minton Beddoes, Musk predicted that AI could surpass the combined intelligence of humanity within about five years.
Within a decade, he suggested, humans might no longer be in control. AI would provide intelligence while humanoid robots would fulfil the need for physical capabilities. Together, they could produce goods and services on an enormous scale. By 2036, Musk suggested, money might scarcely matter.
We need money because desirable things are scarce. If machines can produce almost everything, what exactly would money buy? But abundance of production is not the same as abundance of power. Robots may make goods plentiful without making land plentiful. AI may make intelligence cheap without making ownership cheap. Computing power, energy and data can remain scarce. Someone will own the machines. The real economic question goes beyond whether AI can create abundance.
We must ask if abundance will translate into wider access. A society can have enormous productive capacity and still have profound inequality among human beings.
Musk’s journey makes the argument more intriguing. For years, he warned that AI could become humanity’s “biggest existential threat” and called for safeguards. Today, he is building xAI and investing heavily in the infrastructure that could accelerate the very future he once said he feared. The paradox is striking. His argument is that this technology is coming anyway; the sensible strategy is to build it, understand it and steer it.
Harari approaches the same future from almost the opposite direction. His Economist interview shifts attention from production to information, persuasion and control. His fear is not simply that AI will become smarter than humans, but that it may excel at influencing us.
In Homo Deus, Harari imagined algorithms understanding people better than people understand themselves. In Nexus, he extends the argument to civilization: human societies depend on information networks, but information is not synonymous with truth. It can illuminate reality but also manufacture confusion and concentrate power.
AI changes the equation because it’s not merely a communication channel. It can generate information, adapt messages and act within the network. Imagine a machine that knows what frightens you, what delights you, whom you trust and what you are likely to believe—and can address you in precisely the language that works on you.
One danger is that AI will give us the wrong answer. But another peril lurks. It may become difficult to know whether the answer—or even the question—was ours. This is where Musk and Harari meet.
Musk worries about machines becoming more intelligent than humans. Harari worries about machines becoming more influential than us. One anxiety is about intelligence. The other is about agency. And there is a third poser: who owns the intelligence? That complicates Musk’s post-money utopia.
If AI and robots produce most of the world’s wealth, society will have to decide who gets to own the productive machinery and how its benefits are distributed. A world with little paid work could be liberating—or unequal.
The less glamorous version is already visible. A company doesn’t need to replace every worker with a machine. If AI allows 100 employees to do what once required 110, 10 jobs may vanish. What happens to the economy when thousands of such companies no longer need as many workers? The question that arises is this: who will have the means to enjoy the abundance?
AI could also change the meaning of work as it has long been understood. If machines handle much of production, humans may spend more time on care, creativity, education, friendship and public life. But that future will depend on institutions, ownership and choices. Musk imagines the end of scarcity. Harari foresees human control turning scarce. Both could arrive together.
AI may make goods cheaper while concentrating ownership. It may free us from tedious work while making us dependent on systems we cannot understand. It may give us more information while making truth harder to recognize. It may expand our choices while shaping them.
Much has been said about whether AI will take our jobs or become smarter than us. The policy question, though, is what must remain within the human domain of decision-making. AI’s future will depend on machine intelligence but also on what humans choose to keep: work, ownership, judgement, trust—and ultimately, the freedom to say ‘This decision is still ours.’
The author is professor of statistics, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata.