Billionaire US venture capitalist Vinod Khosla says most of today's children may not need to work when they grow up. In a recent interview with Fortune, the Sun Microsystems co-founder and technology investor predicted that AI will be able to do up to 80% of jobs by the early 2030s.
"It's unlikely that a 5-year-old today would be looking for a job," he said.
Khosla, the founder of Khosla Ventures, has gained a reputation for making bold and well-timed technology investment bets. In 2019, he became OpenAI's first institutional investor, investing $50 million at a $1 billion valuation—the largest initial investment of his career at the time.
In the interview published on Wednesday, Khosla argued that rapid advances in artificial intelligence and robotics will truly liberate much of the workforce within 15 years, ushering in an era of extreme abundance and lower prices.
People will no longer work to make money, he said, but will pursue their passions.
"The need to work will disappear. People will still be doing things they really want to do, rather than doing them because they have to," he said.
"Those are not jobs, they are slavery," Khosla said of manual jobs such as assembly line work and farm work.
Khosla said whoever wins the artificial intelligence race will have a world filled with advanced technology, low prices and less exploited humans.
“My guess is that the value that $30,000 — maybe even $10,000 — will bring in 2040 will be far greater than what you can get today with $100,000 in income,” he said.