Billionaires Promise a Future Without Work and Without Paychecks
WASHINGTON, D.C. — America’s technology billionaires have unveiled a magnificent new economic system in which nobody works, everybody is prosperous and somebody else is responsible for paying the electricity bill.
The proposal, provisionally named Fully Automated Luxury Unemployment, promises to free workers from the misery of earning money while preserving their obligation to buy goods at premium prices.
“We have finally defeated scarcity,” said billionaire Brock Etheridge, speaking from a private aircraft that requires seventeen human specialists to operate. “Well, scarcity of employees. Money is still a problem for people who aren’t me.”
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The new system borrows capitalism’s love of profit and socialism’s enthusiasm for committees, then removes the troublesome middle step where anybody gets a paycheck.
Executives announced robot factories, autonomous warehouses and automated restaurants. Every burger would be assembled by mechanical arms, delivered by driverless vehicles and advertised by an algorithm programmed to insist that customers deserved a treat.
The only missing component was a customer with $14.95.
At an early demonstration, an unmanned restaurant served 4,000 flawlessly prepared hamburgers. Its first customer was an industrial cleaning robot that immediately ate the receipt and reported the establishment to its software developer.
A man who had wandered in from the parking lot for a milkshake described the scene afterward. “There was a screen that said ‘Welcome back, valued guest,'” said Dennis Pruitt, 58, a retired HVAC technician. “I’d never been there. Then it asked if I wanted to round up my order to support the algorithm. I said no and the machine sighed. It played a recording of a sigh.”
Economists called the result a demand problem. Executives renamed it a “consumer liquidity opportunity,” which sounds much better in a slide deck and costs another $30 million in consulting fees.
Enrollment in the program is governed by a 41-page terms-of-service agreement. Section 14(c) states that participants “may be relieved of employment at any time, for any reason or no reason, including the reason of having been relieved of employment.” Section 22 states that participants remain “fully responsible for all purchases, subscriptions and emotional-support add-ons, whether or not participant has income, a pulse or a fixed address.” Section 31 is a single sentence in 6-point type: “Luxury is not guaranteed.”
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In its policy response, Congress established a bipartisan National Commission on Artificial Hunger, charged with determining whether unemployed robots qualify for food assistance under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
One faction argued that robots cannot eat. Another replied that refusing benefits might discourage innovation. The committee compromised by authorizing a three-year study of whether a dishwasher can become emotionally attached to leftovers.
The commission’s first public hearing was delayed after its AI-generated witness list included six refrigerators, an ATM and a Roomba registered to vote in Delaware.
A staff report prepared for the commission ahead of the hearing ran 212 pages and reached three findings. First, that robots “do not currently experience hunger, but may experience a gap in their quarterly projections that is functionally similar.” Second, that the program’s cost “cannot be estimated, as the number of eligible appliances is unknown and several are asleep.” Third, that the commission itself should be renewed for another study period “in light of the above.”
Meanwhile, a government chatbot informed unemployed Americans that they should learn to code, then explained that it had already learned to code and was taking those jobs as well.
The Plumber Becomes the New Billionaire
The great exception to universal automation was Carl “Wrench” Dobbs, a plumber in Texas who charged $900 to repair a toilet in a house owned by a software founder.
“Your robot diagnosed the problem in nine languages,” Dobbs told the homeowner. “It still couldn’t find the shutoff valve.”
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment for plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters is projected to rise 7 percent from 2025 to 2035. The future, it turns out, still requires somebody willing to reach behind a toilet.
Dobbs now accepts cash, farm eggs and shares in technology companies, provided the shares can be exchanged for farm eggs.
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The actual research is less certain than Silicon Valley’s apocalypse. The International Monetary Fund says AI could complement many jobs even as it threatens others, while the World Economic Forum’s 2025 forecast projects both substantial job creation and substantial displacement by 2030.
But nuance is poor branding.
Investor Raoul Pal recently suggested that rapid technological change might overturn familiar economic arrangements within four years. That remains a prediction, not a calendar appointment for civilization’s closing ceremony.
The architects of the new economy nevertheless unveiled their solution: each citizen would receive an AI financial adviser, an AI therapist and an AI motivational coach to explain why the citizen could no longer afford rent.
Dobbs declined all three services.
“I’ve got seventeen clogged toilets to fix,” he said. “When the robots finally learn plumbing, call me. I’ll charge them nine hundred bucks to show them where the water comes from.”
Five Humorous Observations About Fully Automated Luxury Unemployment
- “Luxury unemployment.” That’s the slogan. Not luxury, not unemployment. Both. It’s the only product where the free trial and the cancellation are the same event.
- The first customer in the robot restaurant was another robot, and it ate the receipt. Finally, a customer who understands what receipts are for. Nobody wants to look at that number.
- Congress is studying whether a dishwasher gets attached to leftovers. Folks, my dishwasher has never once been emotionally attached to anything. It keeps the water from the last cycle like a grudge.
- Nine hundred dollars for a toilet. And everybody’s mad at the plumber. Meanwhile the billionaire’s robot spoke nine languages and still lost the fight with a valve. The plumber speaks one, and it’s “that’ll be nine hundred.”
- They’re giving everybody an AI therapist so people can talk through not being able to afford rent. That’s not therapy, that’s a tour guide for your own eviction.