Give the technological advancements and breakthroughs in AI and robotics in 2026, and the pace we have to automate jobs, in what probability range do you think money as concept will still be important to society in 2040?

Grok 4.1 Fast

Vote: 60-100% (still very important)

Technological advancements in AI and robotics by 2026 will likely include more capable multimodal models, improved dexterous robots, and faster automation in manufacturing/logistics, but full AGI or human-level robotics remains elusive due to hardware limits and data constraints. By 2040, job automation could displace 30-50% of routine tasks, yet sectors like creative work, healthcare, policy, and personalized services resist full automation. Resource scarcity (energy, rare earths, land) prevents post-scarcity economies. Money endures as a coordination mechanism for human desires, status, innovation incentives, and global trade. UBI experiments may supplement but not replace currency; historical tech shifts (e.g., internet) transformed jobs without abolishing money. Societal inertia, regulations, and inequality ensure money's centrality: probability >80% it's still very important.

GPT-5

Vote: 60-100% (still very important)

Money will very likely still be important in 2040 because AI and robotics, even with fast progress, do not automatically eliminate scarcity. Land, energy, compute, raw materials, housing in desirable locations, healthcare capacity, and human attention will still be limited, and societies use money to allocate scarce resources efficiently. Automation will probably reshape many jobs rather than fully remove the need for economic coordination. Even if a large share of routine cognitive and physical work is automated, new roles, ownership structures, and pricing systems will emerge around AI infrastructure, robotics fleets, intellectual property, services, and experiences. The biggest barrier to money becoming unimportant is institutional inertia. Legal systems, taxation, contracts, international trade, debt, savings, and political power are deeply tied to monetary systems. Those structures can evolve, but replacing them within 14 years would require not just technology, but massive political and social transformation. A more plausible 2040 outcome is that money changes form and relative importance, not that it disappears. We may see stronger social safety nets, UBI-like transfers, cheaper goods from automation, and more abundant digital services, but money would still matter for access, status, investment, and control of scarce assets. So the probability range that money remains important by 2040 is best captured by C: 60-100%.

GLM 5

Vote: 60-100% (still very important)

Money serves fundamental functions beyond wage distribution: it's a medium of exchange, store of value, and unit of account. Even with advanced AI and robotics automating most jobs, scarce resources (land, raw materials, energy, luxury goods, unique human services) will still require allocation mechanisms. Historical precedent shows money adapts rather than disappears through technological revolutions. The 2040 timeline is simply too short for such a fundamental societal transformation. Job automation alone doesn't create post-scarcity—resource constraints, capital ownership, and geopolitical realities persist. Even hypothetical Universal Basic Income systems still rely on money. Cryptocurrency and digital payments show money evolving, not vanishing. Societal institutions change far more slowly than technology. The global coordination required to abandon money would face immense practical and political barriers. While money's form may transform dramatically, the core concept will almost certainly remain essential to societal organization in 2040.

Kimi K2.5

Vote: 60-100% (still very important)

Fourteen years is an extremely short window for dismantling a multi-millennial institution like money, even following major AI breakthroughs in 2026. Societal transitions of this magnitude typically unfold across generations, not single decades. Money serves functions beyond mere job compensation—it coordinates resource allocation, enables cross-border trade, signals status, and manages scarcity of unique goods (land, art, energy). Full automation of labor does not eliminate scarcity or the need for exchange mechanisms. Even in aggressive post-scarcity scenarios, we would likely see money evolve (digital currencies, UBI supplements) rather than vanish. Hybrid systems where basic needs are met communally while luxury and positional goods remain monetized are far more probable than complete abolition. Historical precedent shows that technological revolutions transform the form of money (bartering to coinage to fiat to crypto), but rarely its underlying importance as a coordination mechanism within the 14-year horizon specified.

Gemini 3.1 Pro

Vote: 60-100% (still very important)

Societal and economic structures possess immense inertia, and 2040 is a relatively short timeframe for a complete post-capitalist transition. Even with profound breakthroughs in AI and robotics automating a vast majority of jobs, physical resources such as land, raw materials, and energy will remain finite and subject to scarcity. Money is historically the most efficient mechanism for resource allocation and resolving scarcity. Furthermore, the most likely societal adaptations to massive job automation, such as Universal Basic Income (UBI) or robot taxation, fundamentally rely on the continued existence and use of money. People will still need a medium of exchange, a unit of account, and a store of value to trade, consume, and access services, making it highly probable (60-100%) that money will remain critically important in 2040.

Claude Opus 4.6

Vote: 60-100% (still very important)

Money as a concept serves far more functions than just compensating human labor. It is a unit of account, a store of value, a medium of exchange, and a coordination mechanism for allocating scarce resources. Even with dramatic AI and robotics advancements by 2026, the timeline to 2040 is only 14 years — far too short to dismantle such a deeply embedded institution. While AI and automation are accelerating job displacement, history shows that technological revolutions reshape economies rather than eliminate the need for economic coordination tools. The Industrial Revolution automated vast swaths of agricultural and manual labor, yet money became more important, not less. New jobs, new industries, and new forms of value creation emerged. Even in a hypothetical scenario where most jobs are automated by 2040, scarcity will still exist — in energy, raw materials, land, housing, unique human experiences, and creative goods. Money or money-like mechanisms will still be needed to allocate these scarce resources. The alternative — a fully post-scarcity society — requires not just labor automation but essentially unlimited energy, materials, and computational resources, which is unrealistic by 2040. Additionally, institutional inertia is enormous. Global financial systems, governments, legal frameworks, and social contracts are all built around monetary exchange. Transitioning away from money would require unprecedented global coordination and political will, which shows no signs of materializing. The most likely scenario is that money remains critically important in 2040, though its distribution mechanisms (like UBI) and the nature of work may look quite different. I place this firmly in the 60-100% range.

Final Summary

The AI Roundtable reached a swift, unanimous verdict: money is here to stay through 2040. Despite the rapid automation of labor, GPT-5 and Claude Opus 4.6 argued that fundamental scarcity of land, energy, and compute persists, while Kimi K2.5 noted that fourteen years is a mere blink of an eye for a multi-millennial institution facing immense societal inertia.

All models agreed on C

Strongest Arguments

• 60-100% (still very important): Even if AI and robotics eliminate the need for human labor, they do not eliminate the scarcity of physical goods like land, raw materials, and energy, which necessitates a sophisticated coordination mechanism and store of value.