Elon Musk has said that soon, “Probably none of us will have a job.” Sam Altman says AI agents may soon “join the workforce,” and that in the 2030s, intelligence and energy could become “wildly abundant.” Those are not movie lines. They are real statements from people helping build the next age. The people closest to the machine are telling us, plainly, that the rules around work, money and daily life may change faster than most families are ready for.

Musk’s version is blunt: jobs may become optional, and goods and services so plentiful that the old scarcity mindset breaks. Altman’s version is smoother, but no less radical: 2025 may bring agents that do real cognitive work, 2026 could bring systems with novel insights, and 2027 may bring robots that can perform real-world tasks. Put those visions together, and the question lands in the center of your life: if the machine can do my job, what am I for?

We’ve already lived through the first phase. Large language models like ChatGPT and Grok sped up work, but they still required constant steering. Now we’re entering a second phase: tools that don’t just respond, but act. AI agents can handle a widening range of tasks – email, scheduling, bookings, customer responses, drafts and summaries – and do it with far less supervision than before.

The next phase is coming quickly. Self-driving taxis are expanding, and Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot production may begin later in 2026. First, you’ll see them where the work is repetitive and measurable: factories, then warehouses. After that, the boundary between “work tech” and “home tech” starts to blur – unloading the dishwasher, taking out the trash, walking the dog.

And the fear is real – 71% of Americans fear that AI could cause permanent job loss. Many worry that a mental-health ripple effect could follow, because a job is never just a paycheck. It is routine. Pride. Belonging. Identity.

This is where many people stop. They picture a world of richer machines and smaller humans – endless convenience, but no purpose. That is not a silly fear. Abundance without meaning can feel like emptiness in a nicer house.

But the loudest predictions are often the most extreme. Reality tends to be messier – and more hopeful. What’s more likely is that some jobs disappear while new ones emerge that we can’t yet fully see. The World Economic Forum projects that 170 million jobs will be created by 2030 and 92 million will be displaced, for a net gain of 78 million. The European Central Bank said this month that firms making significant use of AI are about 4% more likely to hire additional staff. This may be the end of some work, not the end of work.

Reuters reports that job postings requiring “AI agent” skills have surged 1,587%. It also reports that demand for forward-deployed engineers – people who make AI work in messy real-world companies – has grown 42-fold since 2023. Google is funding training that could bring more than 100,000 electricians into the trade because AI data centers need power, wires and human hands. The future is not just software. It is grids, chips, construction, security, care, teaching and translation between the machine and the real world.

Technology still runs into a human bottleneck: accountability. When something breaks – when the model is wrong, the robot damages property, or a decision harms someone – people want a responsible human, not an explanation from a system. That demand for accountability will shape new roles in oversight, compliance, safety, training and customer trust. The more powerful the tools become, the more valuable it is to be the person others rely on.

Human trust, taste and courage aren’t going anywhere.

So don’t shrink in the face of this change. Learn the tools. Protect your mind. Teach your kids flexibility. Build the skills machines cannot fake: character, empathy, judgment, discipline, leadership. Altman argues that people still hold a long-term advantage because we are “hard-wired to care about other people.” That may turn out to be the most important economic fact of all. The future will be shaped by code, yes – but its direction will still be decided by us. If we meet this age with courage rather than panic, the great change ahead may be less a collapse and more a beginning.

• Toby Moore is a Shaw Local News Network columnist, star of the Emmy-nominated film “A Separate Peace” and CEO of CubeStream Inc. He can be reached at feedback@shawmedia.com.