“Ideally, in 2040 the transition to the self-actualization economy will have begun. We will have come a long way since the 2020s. For the first time in history, humanity will be highly engaged in conversations about what kind of civilization it wants and what we, as individuals and as a species, want to become. Movies, global cyber games, UN summits, VR news, flash mob cyber teach-ins and global thought leaders will lead us in probing the meaning of life and the possible future as never before.
“The historic shift from human labor and knowledge to machine labor and knowledge is clear: humanity will be freed from the necessity of having a job to earn a living and to achieve self-respect. The initiation of the transition from the job economy to the self-actualization economy will be well underway. By the mid-2030s, humanity will begin to break free from work-life anxiety and pressure as artificial narrow intelligence (ANI) becomes more universal and as artificial general intelligence (AGI) emerges.
“When we look back at how this happened, we will see that the universal basic income (UBI) experiments in the early 21st century were shown to have positive effects in Brazil, Finland, Switzerland and the Basque region of Spain. Earlier experiments on a smaller scale that gave basic income to groups in India, Liberia, Kenya, Namibia and Uganda will also show that people tended to use their basic income to make more income.
By 2040, AI and robotic urban people-mover systems will have made free public transportation possible in many cities and Hyperloop-connected cities will have high-speed transportation. … Advances in materials science, 3D/4D and bio-printing, biomimicry, nanotech graphene that lasts longer with less need for repairs and other new technologies will have reduced the costs of construction, fabrication, maintenance, water, energy, medical drugs and the retrofitting of infrastructures.
“Studies will also show that in communities in which people were given a free basic income health increased, crime decreased, education improved and self-employment increased, contrary to earlier criticism that guaranteed income would ‘make everyone lazy.’ UBI efforts in Finland and the UK show that their supplemental cash payment system that consolidated welfare programs is more efficient than complex bureaucracies.
“As the world will become increasingly aware in the 2020s that growth by itself is no longer increasing wages and employment, thought leaders will begin to call more loudly for new economic approaches. The earlier attempts to reduce the global unemployment situation by doing things like changing tax credits, increasing the power of labor unions, improving STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education, promoting job sharing and reducing work hours help somewhat but make only marginal differences. Something far more fundamental is happening: AI is emerging as the solution.
“Just as the industrial revolution in the 1700s to 1800s began replacing human muscles on the job, the AI revolution is beginning to replace human brains. At first, the numbers of the unemployed will continue to increase due to new technologies. Lobbying for a basic income for all will become more widespread, but the cost of living in the 2020s will still be too high for national budgets to afford. It will not be until the mid-2030s that the cost of living will begin to fall enough and government income will begin to increase enough that basic-income systems will become financially sustainable.
“New technology since the 2020s will have created by 2040 as many or more new kinds of human activity than it has replaced. The concept of unemployment will lose its meaning when a new, young ‘Globals’ generation comes along just as AGI begins to integrate and manage countless artificial narrow intelligence programs in the 2030s. The new AI will maintain and improve the basic infrastructure of civilization, from waste management and flood control of rivers to the use of millions of robotic vehicles in the air, land and sea. The cost of running cities and suburbs will begin to fall.
“By 2040, AI and robotic urban people-mover systems will have made free public transportation possible in many cities and Hyperloop-connected cities will have begun lowering their costs for high-speed transportation. AI efficiency-managed transportation will have reduced operating costs, as will telecommuting. Advances in materials science, 3D/4D and bio-printing, biomimicry, nanotech graphene that lasts longer with less need for repairs and other new technologies will have reduced the costs of construction, fabrication, maintenance, water, energy, medical drugs and the retrofitting of infrastructures.
“Atomically precise manufacturing due to AI will have reduced costs by reducing pollution, friction and delays across every aspect of society, eliminating imperfections and failures and lowering the material and energy costs per unit of production.
“Computational physics will have found replacements for many scarce and expensive natural resources. Improved recycling and other green technologies will have lowered costs of environmental maintenance. Other energy costs will be reduced by low-energy nuclear reactions (LENRs – previously referred to as ‘cold fusion’), solar, wind, drilled hot-rock geothermal and massive storage systems. More-efficient buildings that create their own energy will reduce the cost of shelter and environmental impacts. Most windows in 2040 will come with imbedded nano-photovoltaic material.
“In 2040, food costs will be reduced due to AI/robotic fresh- and saltwater agriculture, pure meat produced by culturing real animal cells in vitro, synthetic biology and AI/robotic delivery systems that deliver food from farm to table. Tele-health, tele-education, tele-everything will also have lowered the cost of living.
“Because 2040’s UBI will help reduce stress, stress-related costs in health care and crime will also be reduced. AI and robots that are not paid will work 24 hours a day seven days per week make far few errors and receive no paid vacations or health or retirement benefits; the costs of insurance, production, maintenance and labor will be dramatically lowered.
“Genomic personalized medicine with AI-augmented diagnostics, treatment, bio-printing, synthetic biology and robotic surgery will make it possible to offer public health care as a right of citizenship.
“Defense spending will be reduced because cyber systems are less expensive to maintain and build than industrial-age military systems. As the costs of many things continue to decrease, the budget requirements for UBI will also decrease. This will reinforce the belief that it will be possible to financially maintain universal payments to citizens into the future.
“MOOCs (massive, open, online courses) and AI-augmented global education systems and apps will make it possible to offer free public education from early childhood to the PhD. Multi-material 3D/4D printers in community maker hubs will have continuously improved the quality of objects by rewriting software based on feedback from global sensor networks that evaluate the efficiency of previously printed objects around the world. Much software will be free, able to be copied perfectly, instantly and worldwide. The whole world will get smarter together in real time.”
This essay was written in November 2023 in reply to the question: Considering likely changes due to the proliferation of AI in individuals’ lives and in social, economic and political systems, how will life have changed by 2040? This and more than 150 additional essay responses are included in the report “The Impact of Artificial Intelligence by 2040”