Elon Musk says AI will create such abundance that governments will provide for everyone and work will become an option. Michael Burry says getting there will be a tough road.

“AI+ robots will be able to do everything, resulting in high universal incomes,” Musk recently posted on X. “Work will be optional.”

“False,” Burry replied. “First there will be a revolution.”

Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, was responding to an essay published in X by a fellow tech billionaire, Chamath Palihapitiya. The article, titled “The Great Decline,” said that “the cost of experience is falling to zero” as AI models allow everyone to access intelligence.

The response from Burry, the investor of “The Big Short” fame who went from running a hedge fund to writing at Substack, suggests he anticipates civil unrest if AI displaces human workers on a large scale.

Musk and Burry did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s requests for comment.

Musk has repeatedly said that artificial intelligence, robotics and other technologies will reduce costs and increase efficiency to such an extent that food, housing, utilities, health care and other essentials will become much cheaper.

Governments could then afford to give citizens enough money to live comfortably, freeing them from having to work to support themselves, Musk said.

Universal High Income (UHI) goes beyond Universal Basic Income (UBI), which only provides enough money to cover basic needs like gas, rent, and food.

“Universal HIGH INCOME via federally issued checks is the best way to deal with unemployment caused by AI,” Musk said in an X post in April.

Musk has even gone so far as to say that saving for retirement could be “irrelevant” in 20 years because there will be so much wealth for everyone that no one will need savings.

Burry, who said on Substack last week that he was shorting Tesla, wrote on X in late January that “Elon is an American treasure but also a desperately incentivized futurist even before me.”

The investor was referring to his penchant for predicting crises long before they occur, which dates back to his premature but ultimately prescient bet against the housing bubble of the mid-2000s.

The debate over AI jobs

Burry is not alone in predicting civil unrest if masses of people suddenly lose their jobs due to AI. Ray Dalio, the billionaire founder of Bridgewater Associates, warned that AI could exacerbate wealth inequality, increasing the risk of internal conflict and even civil war.

Dalio said on “The Diary of a CEO” podcast last fall that a redistribution policy in the age of AI is a must, and he needs to redistribute more than money, as “uselessness and money may not be a great combination.”

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has said AI could eventually shorten the work week to 3.5 days, help people be healthier and live longer, and give them more time to walk and enjoy leisure activities.

But he also warned that AI could replace jobs so quickly that it would send shock waves through labor markets and economies, and companies, governments and other stakeholders must work together to retrain people, move them into different roles, offer them early retirement and provide other types of help and support when AI makes them redundant.