Twenty-five years ago I predicted a machine IQ of 200 at intensive human use by 2050. It is arriving sooner, by 2040. Here is the world it makes possible, year by year to 2050.
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Tuesday, 2040. You work two days a week. Before you finish your coffee, a home robot has made breakfast, and an AI with an IQ of 200 has read your medical scan, drafted your town's budget for the council to approve, and run a thousand experiments on a better battery. Your base income arrives as a dividend from the machines. Today is yours: your children, your community, your inner life.
Science fiction? So was my prediction twenty five years ago: a machine IQ of 200 at intensive human use by 2050.
I was wrong. It is coming sooner: 2040.
Signal check: October 2026
- In July 2026, the best AI scored 136 on a hidden IQ test, one kept offline so no model could have trained on it. That is higher than about 99% of people.
- About 25,000 humanoid robots were shipped worldwide in the first half of 2026. That is the start of the curve.
- The world economy is worth about $126 trillion and grows about 3% a year. That is the launch pad.
The engine: a loop that builds itself
Every earlier technology needed people to invent it, build it and improve it. This one starts doing all three for itself. AI speeds up science. Science improves AI and robots. Robots build more robots.
With 10 million capable robots at work in 2032 and their numbers doubling every year, more than a billion are at work by 2039. Goldman Sachs already forecasts about 6.5 million humanoids shipped in 2035. When robots start building robots, that curve bends upward.
Economy: the tenfold world
- Growth of about 30% a year from the early 2030s makes the world economy about ten times today's size by 2040: more than $1,000 trillion a year.
- What robots make gets cheaper every year. A tutor, a lawyer's advice, an hour of care: luxuries today, ordinary tomorrow.
- The big question becomes "who owns the machines?" The answer: all of us. Abundance is shared.
Science: discovery at machine speed
- AI-run labs work around the clock, test thousands of ideas in parallel and never forget a result.
- Waves of new medicines, materials and clean-energy breakthroughs arrive through the 2030s. Diseases that end lives today become treatable, and many curable.
Technology: a genius in every pocket, then in every home
- Thinking at IQ 200 level reaches everyone in the early 2030s. Robots with that ability, working across the physical world at scale, follow around 2040.
- Trust becomes a product. Every organisation has AI governance, audit and a named human who answers for the result.
Society: from human in the loop to human above the loop
- Today we check AI's work. Around 2030 we set the goals and handle the exceptions. By the late 2030s we keep what matters most: accountability, values, relationships and care.
- The average working week falls towards two days by 2040.
- Meaning becomes the new career: caring, teaching, creating, building community and growing spiritually.
Politics: the decade of the dividend
- When machines do most of the work, everyone shares the dividend. History is on our side: during and after the Second World War, the top US income tax rate was 91–94%.
- A global tax, high enough to fund prosperity for all. AI and robots work across borders, so the tax does too: a large share of every AI and robot profit, and top bands of 60–90% on extreme fortunes, flow into one global fund.
- A global universal income. That fund pays a base income to every person on Earth: national schemes first, a global floor around 2040, then rising with the tenfold economy. Ireland has already made its basic income for artists permanent.
- The arithmetic of abundance. A tenfold world economy is about $1,300 trillion a year. Shared four fifths through the global tax, it pays every one of the 9.7 billion people on Earth in 2050 about €100,000 a year in today's money. Shared half, about €60,000.
- The 2030s are the decade people take democratic ownership of AI. I am betting on people.
How we get there
- Power the loop: clean energy and chip factories grow with the robots.
- Tax globally, pay globally: one global tax on AI profits and extreme fortunes funds one global universal income.
- Share the machines: every citizen owns a stake in the AI economy.
- Build, don't fight: AI that builds, heals and teaches pays more than AI that fights.
- Keep humans accountable: every important AI decision has a named person who answers for it.
The road to 2050
| Year | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 2026 | AI scores 136 on a hidden IQ test. About 50,000 humanoid robots are shipped a year. The curve begins. |
| 2027 | AI matches top experts on hour-long tasks, and ordinary IQ tests reach their ceiling. EU rules for high-risk AI apply from December. |
| 2028 | AI handles a full working day of expert work. The first factories where robots build most of the robots. |
| 2030 | AI-run labs announce discoveries every week. Humans move "on the loop". National AI dividends and basic incomes spread. |
| 2032 | 10 million capable robots at work, doubling every year. World growth passes 10% a year. |
| 2033 | IQ 200 thinking for everyone, at consumer prices. |
| 2035 | Robots in homes, care and construction. A three-day working week in leading economies. Top tax bands of 60–90% on extreme fortunes. |
| 2037 | A global tax on AI and robot profits and on extreme fortunes: the major economies create one global fund. |
| 2039 | More than a billion robots at work. |
| 2040 | Robots with IQ 200 ability everywhere. The world economy is about ten times its 2026 size, over $1,000 trillion. A global universal income begins for every person on Earth. A two-day average working week. |
| 2045 | Universal income worth about €100,000 of today's money in leading economies, and rising everywhere, as robot-made goods keep getting cheaper. Many of today's deadly diseases are curable. |
| 2050 | Humans "above the loop": work is a choice for most people. A global universal income for all. Care, creativity, community and spiritual life are the great human occupations. Democratic ownership of AI is the heart of politics. |
2040 is closer than it looks. Let's build it together. Share this with someone who will help build it.
Wars and greed can postpone the global growth and prosperity for about ten years!