When it comes to artificial intelligence, few fears loom larger than the idea of robots coming to take our jobs. But if you talk to the AI evangelists among us, that could be a good thing.

Not in the Elon Musk robots-will-babysit-your-kids way, but in a way that helps us make better use of our resources and handles our busy-work. If the doom doesn’t come to fruition — and that is a big if — we could get the one thing there never seems to be enough of: time.

There’s actually a name for this best-case scenario: AI abundance.

Here’s how Anton Korinek — an economics professor at the University of Virginia and one of Vox’s 2024 Future Perfect 50 — recently explained the idea to the host of Explain It to Me, Vox’s weekly call-in podcast: “AI abundance essentially carries the notion that we could all be so much more wealthier than we can even imagine today…AI and robots will be able to produce a lot more goods and services than when we have in today’s economy, and would make us an order of magnitude wealthier and better off.”

But what would a world without work look like? And what would need to happen for AI to free us from work and provide everyone with a good, universal living standard? We discuss that on the latest episode of Explain It to Me. Below is an excerpt of our conversation with Korinek, edited for length and clarity.

You can listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts. If you’d like to submit a question, send an email to askvox@vox.com or call 1-800-618-8545.

We keep hearing that a change of this scale is unprecedented. Is that true or is it hype?

I think........

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