if AI accelerates growth, but even if it doesn’t, $13,500 will have much greater purchasing power than it does today because technology will have dramatically reduced the cost of goods and services. And the actual purchasing power will increase dramatically every year. The changes that are coming are unstoppable. If we embrace them and plan for them, we can use them to create a much more just, happier, and more prosperous society. The future can be almost unimaginably big,” Altman said.
Elon Musk has hinted at a similar future. “There’s a good chance we’ll end up with a universal basic income, or something like that, because of automation , ” Musk told CNBC in 2016 .
In April, a fried chicken shop in New York fax lists City went viral. It wasn’t the food at Sansan Chicken East Village that caught the attention, but the service. Diners found a Filipino assistant manning the cash register via video link.
The service is provided by Happy Cashier, which connects American companies with Filipino workers. Chi Zhang started the business after her restaurant went under during the pandemic. She says the foreign workers also answer phone calls and monitor security camera footage, all at a fraction of the cost of locals.
Virtual cashiers are a visible part of a much larger trend: the rise of services exports from developing countries. Factories churn out widgets, which are shipped to customers around the world. However, improved international connectivity has made various types of outsourcing and digital trade much easier. As a result, services exports have increased 60% over the past decade, reaching $7.9 trillion (7.5% of global GDP) in 2023. The market for physical goods is even larger, at $24 trillion, but has grown much more slowly, remaining flat as a share of GDP.