We’re living through a technological shift unlike any in history. As artificial intelligence and robotics rapidly evolve, they're doing more than just changing how we work—they're changing why we work. Over the next decade, if humanity can share automation tech evenly across society, we’re facing the real possibility that most people simply won’t need to work to survive. Some futurists, including myself, are calling this the Automated Abundance Economy.

The basic idea is straightforward: once machines can do most jobs—like farming, construction, healthcare, education—the essentials of life can be produced in abundance, with very little human labor. In that world, wealth stops being the reward for work and becomes a shared outcome of automation.

At the heart of this shift are two forces: near-total automation and a proposed universal basic income (UBI). Machines and software are getting better, faster, and cheaper, and they’re already replacing some jobs en masse—from factory floors to fast food counters. Probably within five years, machines will routinely build our homes, grow our food, teach our kids, and care for the elderly. That kind of productivity will generate immense wealth, even if humans aren’t the ones directly creating it anymore.

So how do we make sure that wealth benefits everyone? That’s where UBI comes in. It’s not welfare—it’s a dividend.........

© CoinDesk