Silicon Valley billionaire Vinod Khosla calls for universal income because AI will take over 80% of work in 80% of jobs

“I estimate that 80% of 80% of all jobs, maybe more, can be done by an AI,” famed investor and entrepreneur Vinod Khosla has warned. 

“Be it primary care doctors, psychiatrists, sales people, oncologists, farm workers or assembly line workers, structural engineers, chip designers, you name it.”

Khosla cofounded Sun Microsystems in 1982, before investing in Netscape, the earliest widely-used browser, Amazon, Google and more recently invested in OpenAI. 

In a lengthy blog post, he detailed how he has spent that past four decades studying disruptive tech and has come to the conclusion that AI will reduce the need for human labor because it will do most jobs better, faster and cheaper.

To avoid “economic dystopia” where “wealth gets increasingly concentrated at the top while both intellectual and physical work gets devalued” resulting in mass unemployment on a global scale, he points to one solution: Universal basic income (UBI).

“AI could create a world where a small elite thrives while the rest face economic instability, especially in a democracy that drifts without strong policy,” Khosla wrote. 

“As AI reduces the need for human labor, UBI could become crucial, with governments playing a key role in regulating AI’s impact and ensuring equitable wealth distribution,” he added. “As AI reduces labor costs and increases productivity, the role of government regulation will be crucial in managing the distribution of wealth and maintaining social welfare.

The good news? Say hello to a 3-day week

It’s not all doom and gloom. If AI is used for good, rather than abused by those in power, Khosla wrote that it has the potential to “generate more than enough wealth to go around, and everyone will be better off than in a world without it.”

For those who are still in jobs, it could finally open up the possibility of a shorter week.

“With the right policies, we could smooth the transition and even usher in a 3-day workweek,” Khosla explained, while adding that in 10 years’ time, a million two-legged robots could have already taken over various drudge work.

The 69-year-old said that white collar workers may be first to go, but that blue collar workers won’t be immune from automation—and in his eyes most people will be happier for it.

“Take investment banking, for instance—is it gratifying to spend 16 hours a day hacking away at an Excel spreadsheet or PowerPoint deck, repeating the same rote tasks?”

“Is it truly fulfilling to spend 30 years mounting a single type of wheel onto cars on an assembly line? Such jobs, like farm work in 100°F heat, represent a form of servitude, not human flourishing.” 

And in the scenario where 80% of our work is replaced by robots? Khosla makes the case for one-day workweek, where humans provide “the 20% of work we may need or want.”

“This shift could redefine what it means to be human—no longer confined by the drudgery of an assembly line job that defines one’s entire existence,” he added.

Rather than spending eight hours a day, five days a week working, people will be able to pursue hobbies, spend time with loved ones or, in Khosla’s case, take up gardening, skiing and hiking.

“Life won’t become less meaningful once we eradicate undesirable, toil-intensive jobs,” he concludes. “Quite the opposite—life will become more meaningful as the need to work 40 hours per week could disappear within a few decades for those countries that adapt to these technologies.”

Tech leaders agree: There will be less work thanks to AI

Khosla’s not the first to admit that AI will eat up much of the workweek—and result in both the need for a universal income and some serious thought into what you’ll do with all that free time. 

While some view increased efficiency as the chance to get more out of their workers, Bill Gates thinks it’ll provide the working population with the chance to dial back their efforts.

Like Khosla, the Microsoft founder said that he’s anticipating a three-day work week thanks to AI because “machines can make all the food and the stuff, and we don’t have to work as hard”.

Similarly, Elon Musk has repeatedly insisted that work will one day become “like a hobby”.

 “You can have a job if you want to have a job, or sort of personal satisfaction, but the AI will be able to do everything,” he told U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, while echoing that it’ll lead to a “universal high income,” an apparent superior version of universal basic income, which other Silicon Valley figures like Sam Altman and Mark Zuckerberg have championed. 

Likewise, Avital Balwit, the chief of staff at Anthropic, one of AI’s hottest startups, recently predicted that most jobs are destined for obsolescence—and anyone who thinks otherwise is in denial.

Rather than commuting to a desk (or a farm, or factory) five days a week, she thinks people will live more like the gentry from Bridgerton and Downton Abbey.

“If we do manage to obtain a world where people have their material needs met but also have no need to work, aristocrats could be a relevant comparison,” Balwit concluded.

Of course, experts have long predicted that improvements in technology would allow workers to cut their work week, only to see them being tasked with more productive labor to fill the time saved. In 1930, economist John Maynard Keynes published an essay entitled “Economic possibilities for our grandchildren” in which he predicted that in a century people would only work 15 hours per week because by then—2030—consumption needs would be met with very little work. That prediction has yet to come true.