Lede
The promise is that AI will bake a pie so large everyone gets a slice, but the reality looks more like a virtual pacifier for the masses while the owners retreat behind high-tech walls.
Hermit Off Script
This whole “AI will build abundance and everybody will be filthy rich” lullaby has a very specific choir: the people selling AI, renting AI, packaging AI, and quietly positioning themselves to own whatever is left of the basics when the hype settles. Air, food, work, attention, identity – give it time and there will be a licence key for breathing. Yes, it is nice to be hopeful. Hope is good for the mind. But draw a line from today and be honest: do you think the people already hoarding power want a fair world, or a world that is fair for them? Most of them, call it 99 per cent, are not building heaven for the bloke on a mountain in Nepal who needs none of this. They are building an upgrade path for their own comfort, their own families, their own circle. And sure, they will offer “limitless” for everyone – in a virtual world. Helmets, sensors, an almost-real reality you can buy into. But that is still a fake fix: swap the hard problems for a simulation, burn the brain with endless stimulus, and push the spiritual miracle of being alive into the background noise. We will not even call ourselves human if most of us live plugged in. Evil will not evaporate because the fridge is full. Look at rich countries and rich people now: they do not dissolve the fences, they reinforce them. AI and robotics just make the gates cheaper to run, the surveillance sharper, the exclusion smoother. Their world becomes code and simulation, ours stays physical consequences. And the “free” they keep chanting about is never free – it is paid from our pockets, on schedule, forever. “Let us eradicate disease and suffering with AI.” You can do that instantly by numbing your sensors and calling the numbness progress. Death is still the surest thing we have, and it is an evolutionary step. Immortality, if it ever turns up, is not heaven, it is a long-form nightmare. So yes, maybe we are near a new step of evolution, tools enhancing biology, hidden potential unlocked… but do not pretend it will be handed out like rain. It will be sold, fenced, and tiered – like everything else.
PS: And just to underline the last point: death is still the surest thing we have, and an evolutionary step. So if their promised “next step” is immortality, do not picture heaven. Picture a corporate afterlife – centuries trapped in a limited body, or your mind uploaded to a server owned by someone else, then a monthly fee to access your own memories. They will call it evolution. I will call it what it is: a high-tech cage, sold in tiers, and “available to everyone” … with money.
Elon Musk on AGI Timeline, US vs China, Job Markets, Clean Energy & Humanoid Robots | 220
Chapters:
00:00 – Navigating the Future of AI and Robotics
04:56 – The Promise of Abundance and Optimism
10:02 – Energy: The Key to a Sustainable Future
15:00 – The Role of Education in a Changing World
41:34 – Health, Longevity, and the Future of Humanity
51:14 – AI’s Impact on Labor and Employment
55:34 – Universal High Income: A New Economic Paradigm
58:25 – Navigating the Singularity and AI’s Acceleration
01:02:55 – The Role of AI in Healthcare and Surgery
01:08:51 – Ethics and AI: Programming Values into Machines
01:14:43 – The Future of Space Exploration and AI’s Role
01:35:01 – The Chip Shortage Crisis
01:44:16 – Simulation Theory and Consciousness
01:49:45 – The Search for Extraterrestrial Life
02:00:01 – The Future of Robotics and AI Integration
What does not make sense
- Billionaires who fight unionisation and fair wages claiming they want AI to liberate the working class from drudgery.
- Solving physical hunger and housing crises with “digital assets” and virtual reality real estate.
- The belief that technology removes human greed rather than amplifying it, and giving it faster tools.
- Selling “free” AI tools that harvest user data and consume massive amounts of real-world energy and water.
- Pretending abundance arrives without changing ownership, while everything else in history arrived with an invoice.
- Selling “safety” as AI surveillance and robotics, then acting surprised when it becomes an exclusion system.
Sense check / The numbers
- Oxfam says USD 42 trillion of new wealth was created between December 2019 and December 2021, and USD 26 trillion of it – about 63 per cent – went to the richest 1 per cent. [Oxfam]
- The IEA projects global data-centre electricity demand could rise to about 945 TWh by 2030; one widely cited baseline for current use is about 415 TWh, around 1.5 per cent of global electricity. [IEA]
- A widely repeated estimate, discussed by Nature and attributed to IEA comparisons, is that a typical chatbot request can use roughly 10 times the electricity of a conventional web search. [Nature]
- The IMF estimates almost 40 per cent of global employment is exposed to AI, and about 60 per cent in advanced economies. [IMF]
- The world’s 500 richest people added about USD 2.2 trillion in wealth in 2025, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index (reported publicly). [Bloomberg]
- As of December 9, 2025, the “Magnificent Seven” were worth about USD 21.68 trillion in total market capitalisation. [Investopedia]
- The World Inequality Report estimates the bottom 50 per cent own about 2 per cent of global wealth, while the top 10 per cent own about 76 per cent. [World Inequality Report]
The sketch
Scene 1: The Pitch Panel
A slick tech presenter stands on a stage in front of a screen reading “ABUNDANCE FOR ALL”, holding a shiny VR headset.
Presenter: “With this, you can have anything. A mansion. A feast. Unlimited power. The democratisation of godhood.”
Voice from the crowd: “And in real life?”
Presenter: “In real life, you get excellent loading times.”
Scene 2: The User Experience Panel
A dishevelled man sits in a small, empty concrete room, wearing the headset, smiling and drooling slightly. In his headset world, he is a king on a golden throne.
User (muffled): “I’m… so… rich…”
System prompt: “Please accept updated terms to continue being rich.”
Scene 3: The Reality Panel
The view zooms out. The presenter is outside, locking a heavy gate labelled “SUBSCRIBERS ONLY”. Robots stand guard. A vending machine nearby glows: “ABUNDANCE”, stacked with headsets, while an “ESSENTIALS” shelf sits empty behind “MEMBERS ONLY” tape.
Presenter: “Excellent. Another battery for the grid. Keep the simulation running. Don’t let him wake up.”
Robot: “Invoice sent.”
What to watch, not the show
- Resource hoarding: who is buying farmland, water rights, grid access, and energy infrastructure, not just who is releasing chatbots.
- Ownership: who owns the models, chips, data, platforms, and distribution owns the “abundance”.
- The pivot to “spatial computing”: monetise your field of view, replace physical goods with digital subscriptions.
- Surveillance capitalism: AI security and robotics sold as safety, deployed as sorting and exclusion.
- Labour leverage: automation gains flow to capital unless bargaining power and policy change.
- Cultural drift: when reality becomes optional, fixing reality becomes unfashionable.
The Hermit take
Real abundance is physical security and spiritual freedom, not a generated feast behind a login screen.
If the “gift” needs subscriptions and fences, it is not abundance – it is a trap.
Keep or toss
Toss
Toss the fantasy that tech moguls are building a utopia for you.
Keep the tools that cut disease, waste, and drudgery, but keep your body, your community, and your reality out of their price list.
Sources
- Oxfam on wealth captured by the richest 1 per cent: https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/richest-1-bag-nearly-twice-much-wealth-rest-world-put-together-over-past-two-years
- IEA on energy demand from data centres and AI: https://www.iea.org/reports/energy-and-ai/energy-demand-from-ai
- Nature on AI energy use comparisons: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03408-z
- IMF staff note on AI and the future of work: https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/sdn/2024/english/sdnea2024001.pdf
- Bloomberg on 2025 wealth gains (Bloomberg Billionaires Index): https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-31/richest-billionaires-added-2-2-trillion-in-wealth-in-2025-led-by-musk-ellison
- Investopedia on Magnificent Seven market capitalisation (Dec 2025): https://www.investopedia.com/magnificent-seven-stocks-8402262
- World Inequality Report 2022 (chapter page): https://wir2022.wid.world/chapter-1/
- IEA baseline figures referenced by EU energy site: https://energy.ec.europa.eu/news/focus-data-centres-energy-hungry-challenge-2025-11-17_en
- Guardian report on 2025 billionaire wealth gains: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/dec/31/billionaires-added-record-wealth-2025
