Ever since I came across the comic series Magnus, Robot Fighter during childhood I am enthralled by a world where robots interact and support human civilization. I would have never thought that I will experience that moment in my own lifetime, but recent advances in robotics make me believe the age of robots is just about to arrive.  

Mechanic robots paired with AI technology promise a break through in what these intelligent machines will be able to do. They will not only set humanity free from toilsome labor, their emergence will give us new problems to solve, which relate mostly to social inclusion, the question what it means to be human and how we continue to forge a common ground across humanity and within societies, when predominant aggregation dimensions like nation states, professional identities, paid work, etc. become obsolete. 

Sociologist Emile Durkheim described at the onset of the industrial revolution ANOMIE as a social condition defined by an uprooting or breakdown of any moral values, standards or guidance for individuals to follow. Anomie is believed to possibly evolve from conflict of belief systems and causes breakdown of social bonds between an individual and the community (both economic and primary socialization). I believe overcoming anomie will soon be the central question for humanity to deal with.  

One might think of Elon Musk as the nutcase inventor Rotwang in Fritz Lange's legendary film Metropolis, but there is no doubt that he is one of the true shapers of our common future. He envisions a "post-work" future driven by advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) and humanoid robots, leading to an "age of abundance" where labor is optional and a Universal High Income (UHI) is implemented. Musk predicts that by 2030, robots will outnumber humans, and by 2040, there could be 10 billion or more robots worldwide. Whatever the timeline, I agree with him that a big number of our species will pursue a half farmer / half x lifestyle - you will find after this article a collection of earlier posts. 

1. The "Age of Abundance" & Post-Work Society

• Optional Work: Musk believes AI and robots will perform almost all tasks, both physical and cognitive, making traditional employment unnecessary.
• "Protopia" Vision: He envisions a gradually improving world where scarcity is eliminated, turning work into a voluntary "hobby" rather than a necessity for survival.
• Deflationary Economy: As production costs for goods and services approach zero, the cost of living will collapse, making money largely irrelevant. 

2. Universal High Income (UHI)

• Beyond Basic Income: Musk differentiates UHI from Universal Basic Income (UBI), suggesting that UHI will be a substantial, unconditional financial distribution that ensures a high standard of living, not just survival.
• Funding Mechanism: The UHI would be funded by the massive economic productivity gains generated by AI and robots (often termed a "robot tax" or direct AI-generated value).
• Impact on Wealth: Musk claims in this future, "the poorest person... will live better than the richest person today," with everyone having access to high-quality healthcare, food, and transport. 

3. Tesla Optimus & Humanoid Robots

• Rapid Deployment: Musk is aggressively pushing the development of the Tesla Optimus humanoid robot, with projections to start low-volume production for internal use in 2025 and wider sales in 2026.
• General Purpose Use: He predicts a future where every person will want a personal robot (like an R2-D2 or C-3PO) to handle mundane, dangerous, or repetitive tasks.
• Ubiquity: Musk believes robots will become a standard utility in households and factories, similar to how computers and smartphones are today. 

4. AI and Superintelligence

• AGI Timeline: Musk has predicted that Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)—AI that can outsmart any human—could arrive as early as 2026.
• Superintelligence: By 2030–2031, he believes AI will be smarter than all humans collectively.
• AI Training Data: Musk argues that his platform X (formerly Twitter) is essential for training AI, as it provides the most up-to-date, human-generated data.
• Safety & Alignment: Despite his optimism, Musk has frequently warned about the existential risks of AI if it is not aligned with "truth and beauty". 

Potential Risks and Concerns

• Inequality: Critics warn that if AI/robot ownership is concentrated among a few companies (like Tesla), it could worsen wealth inequality rather than eliminate it.
• The "Purpose" Crisis: If work is eliminated, humanity may face a profound crisis of meaning and identity.
• Uncertain Timelines: Musk is known for missing aggressive deadlines, leading some to be skeptical of his 2026/2030 predictions.
• Planetary scarcity of required ores in particular copper makes such plans look completely unfeasible, but does explain why Musk pushed under the veil of "humans must become a multiplanetary civilization" for extra-terrestial settlements: what can not be found on Earth, needs to be mined elsewhere.  Books by Vaclav Smil (how the world really works) or Ed Conway (Material World) explain the earthly limitations to Musk's plans well.  

Sources:

• https://fortune.com/2026/01/19/when-does-elon-musk-say-work-will-be-optional-and-money-will-be-irrelevant-ai-robotics/
• Elon Musk at WEF 2026: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrB2tQDVLLo
• What is anomie?
• The Evolution and Future of Work
• The Future of Work and Education - and what we can do now
• Robert Friedman speaking about the future of critical minerals
  

This short essay deals with the question of whether the existing world order, which has regarded nation states as the smallest unit of international relations since the Congress of Vienna in 1815, will continue to exist, or whether a different world order will evolve. There are two extremes to choose from: complete globalization on the one hand and complete localization on the other. In between, there is a broad spectrum that includes, for example, the formation of new imperial powers or cooperation between eco-regions.

The director’s annual lecture at Chatham House somehow got my attention these days. How would one of the top think tanks on international relations see the year ahead?

In summary: 
Director of Chatham, Bronwen Maddox, essentially wants the international order not to change. She puts herself and Chatham therefore into the camp of nationalist, i.e. those who want to keep nation states as smallest units of the international order in place. The other camp, the globalists, strive for the human being as the smallest unit of international order. For more on this, watch the great dialogue between Yuval Harari and Chris Anderson. I am truly disappointed in this lack of vision and was even more so in the mostly absurd follow up questions from the audience, which reflected how far current IR professionals are detached from what matters to the people on the ground.

In detail:

• Her main objective is to salvage the international order, but isn’t this exactly what needs to change? She reiterates the words of Henry Kissinger, who perceived in 2014 the rise of China, Islamism and supranational organizations like the EU as the greatest threats to world order.
• She urges her audience to defend existing institutions and create new one’s - dont give up UN. But isn’t exactly the UN an institution which supports the current world order, an order of nation states, which is in contradiction with the science of biogeography and post-growth economics?
• Member states of the IMF and world bank should push back on the US’ cut of funding. But what a futile undertaking, when China has like with so many other Western institutions established a shadow organizations to the World Bank and actively works towards a sinocentric world order.
  

If we want something different than a pax americana or pax sinica, we need to reshape the World Bank into an organization which really serves the people and not their governments. One vision for a new World Bank would be an institution which deploys and safeguards global distributed value accounting and channels a conditional basic income to the bank accounts of planet Earths citizens according to their contribution to the health of natural and cultural ecosystems.

The next day, I facilitate for the probably tenth time a moderated screening of Helena Norberg-Hodge’s documentary The Economics of Happiness. The film is like the anti-thesis to the Chatham House recording. Norberg-Hodge preaches localism, Maddox lectures globalism.

The film in a nutshell:

Ladakhi practiced local agriculture and regional trade - their lifestyle was finely attuned to the local ecosystem > wide general well-being, nobody left behind. With the arrival of modern economics and global trade, the Ladakhis felt poor and miserable, how is that possible? Modern economics introduced most importantly a psychological shift from collective well-being to individual achievement. Compare this with Ken Wilber’s AQAL framework. The advertisement industry has contributed its fair share to this shift in self-perception.

Yet, making globalization the new enemy is distorting the focus. It’s not globalization, but the power and profit driven actors who use globalization as a vehicle to pursue their goals at the expense of human and natural resources, which are the enemy. 15 years after the creation of this film, it is evident that the dichotomy between globalization and localization must be overcome. We are members of one super-organism, one spaceship and need to collaborate to continue having a home. We need to move past in- and out-group thinking. That’s the globalist dimension in this equation.

We require however a human scale anchor in this world and we can only live in a concrete place and nourish the relationships with a handful of real people. As such we are as human species like any other mammal deeply tied to a specific local territory for which we should act as stewards, preserving its integrity for future generations. That’s the localist dimension in this equation.

The future is - in lack of a better wording - glocal. The picture which I have for this future in my mind is however a human hive, i.e. a global planet which is organizationally structured in local combs. What we need at this turning point in human history is an organizational backbone for the combs to interact with each other on questions of regional and global relevance. A new world bank, which adopts the human hive structure and abandons the nations state concept, could be very well such an organizational backbone.

It would however not be staffed by diplomats sitting in posh offices in New York, London or Hong Kong, but its delegates would be the mayors of villages, towns and districts who represent the interests of their community members. Compare Leopold Kohr’s The Breakdown of Nations. We need to rejuvenate democracy, make it agile and less representative. We need to break down power concentration with large countries and corporations.

Other observations - there is always sth new to be detected in this film:

• interesting interview with Chinese youth about cultural self perception. It would be difficult nowadays to find a Chinese saying this.
• urbanization is very resource intensive and has a higher ecological impact on the planet than rural living.
• we need to change the institutions which structure and run the world - individual choices can’t transform societies to the point it is needed
• we need to develop local identities: integrating bioregionalism in public education is a great vehicle to achieve that goal
• emotionally strongest scene: Ladhaki women in western elderly care home observing an apathetic old women sitting alone in front of the TV
• Norberg-Hodge’s solution is a match with Bill Plotikin’s observation that establishing a connection with others and the natural world is the most important task in the education of children and youth.