The Robot Economy: A Future Without Work?

This week we are going to explore another mind breaking concept that has a real possibility of becoming a reality: the robot economy. Many experts talk about it, it was a part of the AI 2027 scenario, but it still feels so strange. Let’s dive in and see what this concept is, how and why it could work and what this could potentially mean for the world.

What is the Robot Economy?

The Robot Economy describes a future where autonomous machines, powered by AI, take over production, logistics, and services. In this world, the cost of labor approaches zero, meaning that once a robot system is in place, producing one more unit of output costs next to nothing. The result? Goods and services become hyper-abundant, fast, and almost free.

So basically , robots will do everything we don’t want to do and we get all the materialistic things we want for free. That sounds crazy, but it could actually become a reality. I have mentioned multiple times that I do believe that there is an utopia at the end of the evolutional tunnel that we just entered, but it will be one hell of a ride to get there.. So… What if the machines finally give us everything we need, and we don’t know what to do with it? What happens when work becomes optional?

I know that this sounds like science-fiction and absolutely crazy, but stay with me here. Let’s start with looking at current progress. At the beginning of March I already wrote an article about the state of robotics and specifically humanoids, edition 14. In short, there are a few very large robotics companies that are going after the humanoid robotics market. The most well known are Boston Dynamics (with their famous “dog” robot), Tesla, Unitree, UBTech, Agility and Figure AI (I bet there are more of course).

Just like every other innovation at the moment, robotics and humanoid innovation is speeding up thanks to AI. There are two important parts to a robot, the hardware and the software. Both are progressing rapidly: hardware innovation (cheaper, more agile machines) with software intelligence (AI models that learn, reason, and act).

Simply put:
• Hardware = the body
• AI = the brain

As AI models (like GPT or Tesla’s Full Self-Driving system network) get better at seeing, planning, and deciding, the robots they control become more capable in the real world. And because these models improve with data, every robot in use helps make the next one smarter.

It’s another flywheel, like with so many current innovations: Better AI → smarter robots → more real-life use of robots → more real-world data → better AI → repeat.

Another breakthrough has been the use of world simulation environments, meaning digital copies of real world places, to train the robots models. You could learn a robot how to walk in your living room, but now instead of that you can do it in a digital replica of it. With incredible speed, 24/7, millions of times over. NVIDIA is one of the companies that are leading here with their platform Nvidia Cosmos, it is built to power world model training and accelerate physical AI development for autonomous vehicles (AVs) and robots.

All together, this is why humanoid robots went from lab demos to warehouse pilots in under 18 months. Once you plug a capable AI into a capable body, the game changes.

This flywheel will continue and I want to invite you to open up your mind towards what this could mean for the world. Let’s fast-forward 10, 20, 30 years from now. How incredible can robots become?

How will this actually work?

Let’s start with one simple truth: robots don’t get tired. Humanoid robots powered by AI are on track to become the most efficient labor force we’ve ever seen. They work 24/7, don’t take coffee breaks, and get better (not slower) over time. That already puts them ahead of most of us. This means that general output can easily double, or triple (?) as a robot could work 24-hours in a day vs the 8-hours of a human, not even taken in consideration the robots could work faster and/or more efficient.

But what’s really disruptive is the economics underneath.

A 2024 study by RethinkX estimates that early general-purpose humanoid robots will enter the market (this year) at a cost of around $2–$10 per hour. That’s already competitive with minimum wage in many countries. But their cost drops by an order of magnitude every 8 years. That means by the 2040s, we could be looking at robot labor for less than $0.10/hour.

The cost of duplicating a digital file is basically zero. A robot economy extends that “zero marginal cost” logic to the physical world.

So why is robot labor getting so cheap, so fast? Three important reasons.

1. Robot hardware is riding the same cost curve as smartphones. Sensors, motors, and chips are now mass-produced, cheaper, and more powerful every year. This decline in costs will only accelerate because more robots will be ready to help with this hardware, including raw (earth) materials.

2. AI models are getting exponentially smarter, allowing a single robot to handle complex, varied tasks without needing manual programming.

3. This was the major unlock in my brain (although so simple) robots run on electricity, or at least just energy. Once deployed, their only cost is energy and maintenance.

This means we go back to something we have discussed in earlier editions as well, especially the AI Agent run companies article, the “only” bottleneck for massive growth of a robot workforce is compute power and energy. This is also exactly the reason why there are so many geo-political tensions in the world when it comes to compute and energy. These things will be so critical to the rise and fall (or falling behind) of many nations.

As all three trends compound, the cost of robot labor drops from dollars to cents and the economy starts to look very different.

We’ve seen this pattern before in software. Remember when storing photos, sending messages, or buying music cost real money? Before streaming, every song had a price tag, whether it was a $15 CD or a $0.99 iTunes download. Now? Billions of songs are played daily at almost zero cost. That same economic shift, from scarcity to abundance, is coming for physical goods too. That’s the robot economy.

These robots also don’t need to be conscious or “human smart” to be transformative. Most jobs involve structured, repetitive tasks, packing, lifting, sorting, stocking, inspecting. Today’s narrow AI is already good enough for that.

What Happens When Work Becomes Optional?

Let’s assume the flywheel keeps spinning. Robots get smarter. Cheaper. More common.
Now fast forward 10, 20, 30 years. Most manual, logistical, and even knowledge work is handled by machines.

So… what do we do?

This is the paradox at the heart of the robot economy: abundance doesn’t solve meaning..If robots can farm, cook, build, ship, diagnose, serve and analyze, what’s left for humans?

Psychologists call this the post-scarcity paradox. For centuries, survival and identity were tied to labor. You were what you did. But in a world where survival is automated, millions of people could face an identity crisis.

We’re not wired to sit still, even when everything’s handled for us. We need challenge. Creation. Community. Status. If work isn’t necessary, it has to become meaningful. That’s a much higher bar.

That’s why thinkers like Yuval Noah Harari have warned that the real threat of automation isn’t just economic, it’s existential. The machines may free us from survival. But we’ll still have to figure out what to live for. This is one of the reasons why I believe we, as a society, have to go through a lot of "sh*t in order to get to an utopia at the other end. But it is going to be worth it.

This might sound incredibly scary, but don’t let this fear stop you from what you are doing. This is still very far away. But, what I hope this will do for you is that you will start thinking about this big questions already. Who are you? If everything disappears, what is left?

The Economic System Can’t Stay the Same

If labor becomes nearly free, our current economy, built on wages and jobs, starts to crack.

Most government budgets rely on income tax. Most people rely on salaries. Most businesses rely on consumption from paid workers. What happens when millions of jobs vanish not because of recession, but because they’re simply… not needed anymore?

The idea Universal Basic Income (UBI), a guaranteed income for every citizen, regardless of employment, has been around for many years. The person most frequently credited as the intellectual father of modern Universal Basic Income is Thomas Paine, due to his 1797 pamphlet Agrarian Justice. He was the first to articulate the idea of a citizen dividend, a fixed income paid to all adults, funded by a tax on inherited land wealth. His rationale was both moral and economic: that natural resources belong to everyone, and private ownership should compensate the public.

That said, in modern policy debates, Milton Friedman often gets referenced as the mainstream economist who gave UBI credibility across the political spectrum, though he proposed a negative income tax, not a true UBI.

It’s been tested in small pilots (Finland, Stockton - USA, Kenya), and gained traction from voices like Sam Altman and Elon Musk because of the, very likely, robot economy scenario.

In the context of a robot economy, UBI might is not just a social safety net but a central pillar of economic infrastructure. A way to keep demand alive in a system where supply is infinite. A way to let people explore creative, caregiving, or community-driven roles without starving.

But UBI is just one piece. Some argue for a “robot tax”, a system where companies that automate labor pay into the public good. Others propose a dividend model, where the value created by robots is distributed back to the people, like nationalized oil funds in some countries.

In 2017, our very own (for the Dutchies) Rutger Bregman pitched his own case for UBI on a Ted stage:

In short: if robots replace labor, we’ll need to decouple income from work and rethink what we tax, reward, and invest in as a society.

What could life look like?

Great, and challenging, question. It is hard to really think about what life could be like when 95% of the world is automated and handled by robots. My mind immediately goes to some beautiful country, or island (just like now yes 🤣), where all I do is things I enjoy. Teaching kids boxing in a local boxing gym, connected to the world whenever I want and disconnected when I don’t want too, so much room for thinking, ideas, the big questions, all while enjoying our beautiful planet mindfully. Not bad, right?

I asked GPT to give me a short story, of what life could look like in a robot economy driven world. Of course it is a very positive (probably overly positive) story, but hey, who knows?:

You live outside the city now. You moved here a few years ago—not because you had to, but because you could. Distance doesn’t matter anymore.

Every morning, a small delivery bot drops off fresh food grown 30km away by autonomous greenhouses. You don’t pay directly. It’s covered by your monthly citizen credit. Healthcare, transport, housing—same deal. Covered. Handled. Invisible.

The village school only has one teacher, but dozens of AI-powered assistants. The kids learn faster than you did. You still help with history sometimes, just to stay involved.

Work? It’s not really a thing here. Some people still run projects. Some just explore. One neighbor is building a vertical garden for fun. Another is digitizing local traditions into a global archive. No one’s in a hurry.

The bots handle most of the hard stuff: water systems, repairs, power. At night, the streets stay clean and the air stays clear—because machines don’t sleep, and they don’t forget.

You don’t check the news much anymore. Most of the drama disappeared when the basics got solved.

It’s not perfect. But it’s calm. And for the first time in your life, you’re not behind.

Ending thoughts

So, what do you think? Do you agree, believe, that this will actually happen or do you think this is insane? Will life be better or worse? All very big questions, so big that we won’t know the answers until we actually get there (or not).

I do hope you also understand why decentralization is going to matter even more and by that I indeed mean blockchain. That feeling got even stronger when I read this sentence in GPT’s story: “You don’t pay directly. It’s covered by your monthly citizen credit.” If the future of UBI, or any other citizen income, is not decentralized we will be at the full mercy of (our/any) government. What if they don’t like what you said or posted on socials? There goes your income….? Indeed, I don’t want to end in a negative way but yes it is scary. Exactly the reason why fighting for blockchain, Bitcoin, Ethereum is so crucial.

There will be challenges, there will be chaos, there will be beauty, there will be passion, there will be love.

We will conquer all these challenges if we stay true to ourselves, true to what makes us human. Double down on being human, a better human and we will get to an utopian ending.

❤️ 

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^{Over the years, I’ve navigated industries like advertising, music, sports, and gaming, always chasing what’s next and figuring out how to make it work for brands, businesses, and myself. From strategizing for global companies to experimenting with the latest tech, I’ve been on a constant journey of learning and sharing.}

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