What Must Societies Reproduce When Robots Can Do Everything?

For decades, advanced societies have worried about declining fertility. The concern seemed obvious. Fewer births meant fewer workers. Fewer workers meant slower growth. Immigration filled labour shortages. Education systems produced skills. Governments worried about maintaining a sufficiently large and capable workforce: “who will do the work?”. The challenge was economic.

But what if that equation is breaking?

Artificial intelligence and robotics are advancing rapidly. Elon Musk^[1] and others argue that these technologies could create an era of unprecedented abundance in which machines perform much of the physical and cognitive labour on which societies currently depend. In such a world, labour shortages fade, productivity surges, and material scarcity recedes.

Suppose they are right.

Imagine a future where robots maintain infrastructure, autonomous factories produce most goods, AI performs much of professional work, and citizens enjoy guaranteed material security. Such a society may be wealthier than any that came before it.

Yet something troubling lurks beneath the abundance: people may enjoy unprecedented prosperity while feeling unprecedented dispensability.

The economic challenge becomes a civilisational one: what happens when people are no longer needed?

The real reproduction crisis may not be demographic. It may be whether societies can continue reproducing meaning, purpose and hope in an age when machines can reproduce everything else. 

The Price of Abundance

The debate over AI often focuses on jobs and income. At the moment, governments are preoccupied with managing the messy transition caused by AI, courting good jobs and ensuring people are upskilled so that they can remain employable.

In Elon Musk’s version of the future, AI and robotics will meet most of the production challenges required. Work becomes optional, and citizens live on something closer to “universal high income”.

 But work has always provided much more than a pay cheque. 

Work structures time. It creates social networks. It confers status. It provides opportunities for mastery, responsibility and contribution. It gives many people a sense that they matter.

Can people flourish when society no longer requires their labour? This is ultimately a question of dignity.

Human dignity is not only something we possess. It is also something we cultivate^[2]. People derive dignity from developing their capacities, caring for others, assuming responsibility, overcoming challenges and contributing to causes larger than themselves. People need to be useful, recognised, stretched and entrusted with responsibility.

A future in which everyone is materially comfortable but unnecessary, may be prosperous, yet profoundly unsatisfying. 

From Production to Formation

Might another thriving future be possible?

One of the great ironies of modern society is that some of its most important activities – “heart work” – are among its least economically rewarded. Parenting. Caregiving. Mentorship. Community leadership.  

Yet these activities reproduce the foundations upon which every society rests.

An optimistic view is that with abundance, humanity is not diminished, but liberated.

Let machines handle production – manufacture goods, manage logistics and perform routine administration. Let automation deal with the mundane – household chores, transport and monitoring activities. Let AI deploy knowledge and intelligence.

Let humans focus on formation – raise children, mentor youth, nurture communities and care for the elderly. Let humans deal with what continues to be scarce and precious – judgement, wisdom, responsibility and moral discernment. Let humans pursue exploration into new frontiers of the sciences, arts, philosophy, religion, and create meaning – deciding the kind of society we want to become, the kind of children we want to bring up, the kind of future that is worth building.

In an abundant future, humans may cease to be economically indispensable while becoming socially indispensable. 

A Future Worth Inheriting Is One that Reproduces Meaning

This brings us back to fertility.

Research across several low-fertility societies found that individuals with higher life satisfaction were consistently more likely to have children. The study concludes that life satisfaction positively influences reproductive behaviour^[3].

One interpretation is that childbearing signals confidence that life is worth continuing and the future worth inheriting. Seen this way, fertility is not just a demographic indicator. It is a measure of societal optimism.

A society that struggles to provide meaning, purpose and belonging may eventually struggle to reproduce itself, regardless of how wealthy it becomes.

The societies that flourish will not necessarily be those with the most advanced AI or the largest fleets of robots. They will be those that remain capable of renewing dignity, purpose, belonging and hope across generations.

Because in the end, the most important thing a society reproduces is not its population.

It is the conviction that the future is worth creating.

Endnotes

1.      Akram, Sophia. 2026. “Elon Musk on Why Technology Could Shape a More Abundant Future.” World Economic Forum. January 24, 2026. https://www.weforum.org/stories/artificial-intelligence/elon-musk-technology-abundant-future-davos-2026/ ↗ (opens in new tab) and “An Interview with Elon Musk | The Economist Insider.” 2026. economist.com. 2026. https://www.economist.com/insider/the-insider/an-interview-with-elon-musk ↗ (opens in new tab).

2.    “The Sources of Human Dignity - IAHPC.” 2025. iahpc.org. 2025. https://iahpc.org/resources/publications/euthanasia-and-physician-assisted-suicide/essays-on-euthanasia-and-physician-assisted-suicide/the-sources-of-human-dignity/?flag=Pallinews-August-6 ↗ (opens in new tab).

3.      Mencarini, Letizia, Daniele Vignoli, Tugba Zeydanli, and Jungho Kim. 2018. “Life Satisfaction Favors Reproduction. The Universal Positive Effect of Life Satisfaction on Childbearing in Contemporary Low Fertility Countries.” Edited by Emmanuel Manalo. PLOS ONE 13 (12): e0206202. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0206202 ↗ (opens in new tab).

Charlene Han is Director at the Centre for Strategic Futures.

The views expressed in this blog are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of Centre for Strategic Futures or any agency of the Government of Singapore.