Lede

The claim that no one will work in the age of AI is not a prophecy, it is a sales pitch wrapped in cheap spirituality and expensive stock options.

Hermit Off Script

I love this line that no one will work in the age of AI, as if the whole planet is about to become one big spa day while the server farms sweat for us. If no one works, who is actually steering anything, or do we just hand the keys to a bunch of venture-backed maths and hope for the best while humans sit quietly in the corner pretending they do not love control. Because humans adore control. Even when we make stupid decisions, we still want them to be our stupid decisions, not outsourced to a chatbot with a startup cap table. So when Elon Musk and the rest of the tech priesthood keep preaching that work is over, I hear one thing: they want more people addicted to their tools so the money river keeps rising. For now, AI is just that, a tool, getting sharper every year, but still a tool. The only world where no one works is one where people genuinely turn to the spiritual side, meditate, and unlock something better than brain power, the soul-level stuff religions have been hinting at since humans first tried to name the stars. Until then, you will log in somewhere, trust me.

What does not make sense

• “No one will work” while entire political systems still revolve around jobs, wages, and tax receipts to keep the lights on.
• Humans, who argue over the office thermostat, are meant to calmly hand “top control decisions” to AI and never interfere again. Sure.
• Tech billionaires who rely on endless growth claim they are about to turn off the labour tap that creates their growth.
• The same voices shouting “AI will replace everyone” are also quietly hiring armies of engineers, annotators, and moderators.
• Spiritual awakening is sold as the soft landing, but the marketing budget goes into GPUs, not monasteries.
• If AI really removed all work, the first thing to vanish would be the profit that makes these AI firms exist in the first place.

Sense check / The numbers

1. On average across OECD countries, about 27 to 28 percent of jobs are in occupations at high risk of automation, not 100 percent of everything humans do.
2. The World Economic Forum expects around 23 percent of jobs to change by 2027, with 69 million new jobs created and 83 million eliminated, not a clean wipe-out of human work but a messy reshuffle.
3. The same WEF analysis predicts a 40 percent jump in AI and machine learning specialists, plus big rises in data and cyber roles, adding roughly 2.6 million jobs in those categories alone. Automation cuts some roles while funding others.
4. The global AI market was estimated at about 279 billion dollars in 2024 and is projected to reach roughly 3.5 trillion by 2033, which shows where the real excitement is: selling AI, not retiring humanity.
5. Elon Musk’s xAI raised around 6 billion dollars in late 2024 and has since chased valuations in the 40 to 80 billion dollar range. That is not the behaviour of someone trying to end work; it is the behaviour of someone trying to own the work tools.

The sketch

Scene 1: The Great Announcement
Panel description: A tech billionaire on a glossy stage, giant slide behind him reading “NO ONE WILL WORK BY 2035”. Below, workers in hi-vis jackets, nurses, and delivery riders staring up, still in uniform.
Dialogue:
Billionaire: “Soon, no one will have to work.”
Nurse: “So I can clock out now, yeah?”

Scene 2: The Sacred Retreat
Panel description: A “Corporate Spirituality Retreat” in the mountains. Attendees sit in lotus pose with headsets on while a projector shows stock prices.
Dialogue:
Meditation guide: “Breathe deeply. Visualise your higher self.”
Off-screen voice from headset: “Upgrade to Pro to unlock enlightenment.”

Scene 3: The Real Control Room
Panel description: A cramped operations room, human staff frantically fixing cables and dashboards while a smug AI interface glows on the wall saying “AUTOMATED”.
Dialogue:
Operator 1: “Apparently, no one works anymore.”
Operator 2: “Cool. Tell that to the server that just caught fire.”

What to watch, not the show

• Capital chasing AI subscriptions, not universal sabbaticals.
• Narrative control: if people accept “work is finished”, it gets easier to justify worse wages and more precarity while calling it progress.
• Policy gaps: governments repeating tech talking points instead of building real safety nets, retraining, and worker power.
• Invisible labour: annotators, moderators, click-workers, and data janitors doing the “no one works anymore” work.
• Spiritual bypassing: selling meditation and soul-talk as a lifestyle add-on while dodging hard questions about power and ownership.
• Long term risk of control creep, where decision systems shape the world while responsibility evaporates into “the algorithm did it”.

The Hermit take

If AI ever really ended all human work, the first job to go would be “billionaire”.
Until that happens, I am following the money, not the prophecies.

Keep or toss

Verdict: Toss

Toss the fantasy that no one will work in the age of AI.
Keep the useful tools, keep the push for more soulful lives, but throw away the billionaire bedtime story that you will all retire to a meditation cushion while their servers spin the world.

Sources

• OECD Employment Outlook 2023, AI and work overview –
  https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/oecd-employment-outlook-2023_08785bba-en.html
• OECD AI and work topic page –
  https://www.oecd.org/en/topics/sub-issues/ai-and-work.html
• World Economic Forum, Future of Jobs Report 2023 overview –
  https://www.weforum.org/publications/the-future-of-jobs-report-2023/
• World Economic Forum, Future of Jobs 2023 key numbers (jobs lost and created) –
  https://www.weforum.org/press/2023/04/future-of-jobs-report-2023-up-to-a-quarter-of-jobs-expected-to-change-in-next-five-years/
• World Economic Forum, jobs most likely to be lost and created because of AI –
  https://www.weforum.org/stories/2023/05/jobs-lost-created-ai-gpt/
• Grand View Research, Artificial Intelligence Market Summary –
  https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/artificial-intelligence-ai-market
• Faist Group summary of Grand View AI market forecast to 2030 –
  https://www.faistgroup.com/news/global-ai-market-2030/
• TechCrunch, Elon Musk’s xAI lands 6 billion dollars in new cash –
  https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/25/elon-musks-xai-lands-billions-in-new-cash-to-fuel-ai-ambitions/
• Forbes, xAI valuation passes 40 billion after funding round –
  https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2024/12/23/xai-valuation-reaches-over-40-billion-after-6-billion-funding-round/
• Reuters, xAI valuation rises to 80 billion in early 2025 –
  https://www.reuters.com/technology/27-jobs-high-risk-ai-revolution-says-oecd-2023-07-11/