'There won't be money anymore': Yuval Noah Harari backs Elon Musk's prediction, warns of AI takeover

Historian and bestselling author Yuval Noah Harari has warned that artificial intelligence could take control of financial and legal systems over the next 10 to 20 years. He said AI can create structures so complex that humans may no longer understand how they work or how decisions affecting their lives are made.

Harari, a professor of history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, said the biggest threat from AI may not come from robots attacking humans but from intelligent systems gradually taking over the institutions that govern society.

"The AIs are taking over the financial system. They are taking over all the bureaucracies because they are bureaucratic natives," Harari said in an interview with Veda 24.

He argued that human civilisation became powerful not because individuals were physically or intellectually superior to other animals, but because humans developed systems that allowed millions of people to cooperate.

"The way that humans took over the planet is by building bureaucratic systems, not by individuality. Individually, I'm not much stronger or smarter than other animals," he said. "But building bureaucratic systems like the financial system, banks, like the law system, courts, like religion, like the state, these are all bureaucratic systems that enable millions of humans to cooperate very effectively. And this is the source of our power.

However, he said AI could eventually operate these systems far more effectively than humans.

Explaining why AI could dominate financial institutions, Harari said bureaucracies were relatively recent inventions in human history, while AI systems were effectively designed to function within them.

"For us, most of us, bureaucracy is difficult, is alien because we are millions of years older than the bureaucracies. Bureaucracies were invented just in the last 5000-10,000 years. We were born in the forest, not in the office," he said. "For AI, bureaucracy is home. They're born in the office. They are bureaucratic natives."

He cited banking as an example of the advantage AI could have over humans. "No human banker can remember all the transactions of the bank. An AI banker can," Harari said. "They will take over the bureaucracies like the financial system, create much more sophisticated financial systems and legal systems that we can't understand."

Harari compared this possibility to the relationship between humans and animals, arguing that animals are affected by economic systems they cannot comprehend. "So just as cows can't understand the financial system that controls their lives today, we will not be able to understand the AI financial system that will control our lives in 10 or 20 years."

'We are the cows of the future'

When the interviewer suggested that humans could become the cows of the future, Harari agreed. "We are the cows of the future," he said.

The author explained that a cow may recognise humans but cannot understand money, banks, stock exchanges or bond markets, even though these institutions can determine its fate. He suggested humans could face a similar situation if AI develops financial systems that people can no longer understand or influence.

Elon Musk's prediction on money

Harari also referred to a prediction by Tesla CEO Elon Musk that money could cease to exist within the next decade. "Now just a very short time ago, Elon Musk gave an interview saying in 10 years there won't be money anymore," he said.

The professor said he agreed with Musk's prediction, despite disagreeing with him on other issues. "I disagree with some things he says and does, but I agree with that."

The historian argued that warnings about the future of money should be taken seriously when they come from people directly involved in developing advanced technologies. He described money as one of humanity's most important inventions, saying it had allowed strangers across countries, cultures, and political divisions to cooperate.

"People often like to think that money is the source of all evil. But money is also the most sophisticated system of trust ever created," he said. "It's the only thing everybody almost everybody trusts."

He gave the example of travelling to the Czech Republic without speaking the local language but still being able to purchase food through a universally recognised payment system. He also pointed to political divisions in the United States, saying that even Democrats and Republicans, despite their disagreements, operate within the same monetary system.

But he warned that this shared system of trust could change fundamentally as AI develops new financial structures. "And this will disappear in a few years perhaps as AIs create new financial systems that we can't understand in the same way that the cows can't understand our financial system," he said.

How will people buy bread in 10 years?

Asked how ordinary people would purchase basic necessities such as bread in a future where money no longer works as it does today, Harari said the answer was unknown.

"Nobody knows. We have no idea," he said. "That's my biggest fear about the AI revolution. We can imagine terrorists asking an AI to create a new dangerous virus which is as infectious as COVID and as lethal as AIDS and killing millions. We can imagine that and we should worry about it and take precautions."