What Would an Age of Abundance Mean for Türkiye?

Elon Musk has been describing a remarkably ambitious future.

He argues that, as AI and humanoid robots advance, our capacity to produce goods and services will grow enormously. Robots could outnumber humans, and much of what we buy could become extremely cheap. He talks not just about universal basic income, but about “universal high income”: a world where we no longer have to work, and work becomes something we choose to do, more like a hobby. (World Economic Forum)

When I first heard this, it sounded rather utopian.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realised that the most interesting question was not whether Musk was right.

What if he is?

Of course, we do not know whether this future will arrive. AI is advancing extraordinarily quickly, but progress in the physical world is not moving at the same pace. Energy, minerals, land, chips and capital all seem likely to remain scarce.

Still, I think we need to stop treating this possibility as merely science fiction. It has become a scenario worth taking seriously.

If AI and robotics really can replace a substantial share of human labour, the challenges we face will extend far beyond technology.

Our economic system rests on a basic assumption: most people work to earn a living.

For most of us, income comes largely from our labour. A company hires you, you create value, and you receive a wage in return.

What happens if the need for human labour falls sharply?

The immediate answer is that people will work less and live better.

Perhaps. But that raises another question: who owns the economic value a robot creates?

If a factory can do tomorrow with 50 people and 950 robots what it does today with 1,000 workers, the productivity gains could be enormous. That does not mean the resulting prosperity will automatically be shared among those 1,000 people.

If ownership of the robots, AI systems and infrastructure that power them is concentrated in a few companies or individuals, one of the greatest productivity increases in history could also produce an extraordinary concentration of wealth. Research by the IMF points to this risk: alongside higher productivity, rising returns to capital could increase wealth inequality. (International Monetary Fund)

We need to pause and think about abundance, labour, fair distribution and rights. Abundance does not necessarily mean abundance for everyone.

Perhaps one of the most important economic questions of the coming years will be this:

If we solve the problem of production, how do we solve the problem of distribution?

The question becomes particularly interesting when I think about Türkiye.

Our first instinct might be to say, “If we do not develop these technologies ourselves, we will become dependent on others again.” I no longer think that is a sufficient explanation on its own.

Türkiye may not need to build the world’s best robot. We use computers today without producing the world’s best processors. In much the same way, we could achieve major productivity gains by using robots and AI systems developed elsewhere.

For me, the more important question is this:

How quickly can Türkiye spread these productivity gains across its entire economy?

Can we put these technologies to work in large companies and small businesses, in factories and farms, in education and healthcare? According to a survey published by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) on 2 October 2026, the share of enterprises with at least ten employees reporting the use of any AI technology rose from 7.5% in 2025 to 14% in 2026. Adoption is growing quickly, but it is not yet widespread across the economy. (TÜİK — Artificial Intelligence Statistics, 2026)

Do people actually have the skills to adapt? Talking to ChatGPT or Gemini is a form of using AI. But being able to talk to a tool is not the same as being able to integrate it meaningfully into our work.

This is why I see value in EVREN, an initiative of Türkiye’s Presidency of Defence Industries. Providing infrastructure for data preparation, model training and computing is important. But access to infrastructure and the ability to use it are two different things. Is the path to acquiring those skills clear and accessible to everyone? I think that is one of the questions we need to address. (Ankara University — EVREN AI Platform)

And perhaps most importantly, will the value created reach a broad cross-section of society?

Here, I am more concerned.

Türkiye already struggles to make full use of its workforce. In July 2026, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate among people aged 15–24 was 14.5%. The broader measure of labour underutilisation—which includes time-related underemployment, the potential labour force and unemployment—was 30.6%. (TÜİK — Labour Force Statistics)

Assuming that an economy in this position could manage a rapid technological transformation smoothly strikes me as overly optimistic.

Yet the economic side is not what concerns me most.

Work does more than provide an income.

Today, “What do you do?” is also part of the question “Who are you?”

Our occupations give us status, a social circle, a daily routine, goals and often a sense of being useful. Much of the roughly twenty years we spend educating our children prepares them for this: get a good education, find a good profession, work, produce, succeed. Many of us grew up hearing our elders urge us to “make something of ourselves.”

We do not really know what remains when we remove the need to work from the middle of that chain.

Perhaps people will spend more time on science, art, sport, their families and whatever they are curious about. Perhaps this will open the door to one of the most interesting periods in human history.

Perhaps millions of people will struggle with meaning and status because they feel they are no longer needed economically.

Probably both.

That is why I see Musk’s “age of abundance” as neither a utopia nor a dystopia.

For me, the central issue is less whether we can achieve abundance than how we get there.

Technology may solve the problem of production faster than people and institutions can adapt.

On one side, we could have extraordinarily productive companies, robots and AI systems. On the other, hundreds of millions of people whose income, occupations and place in society still depend on human labour.

If that transition happens in a few years, we face a serious problem. If it unfolds over thirty or forty years, our institutions have a much better chance of adapting.

Nobody knows how fast it will happen.

That is precisely where my concern for Türkiye lies.

I worry less about missing out on the technology than about failing to keep pace with the change.

The differences between countries may not be determined solely by who develops better AI or robots. They may also depend on who can adapt their education systems, businesses, social safety nets and working cultures to this new reality more quickly.

And perhaps we will find ourselves confronting a more fundamental question:

How will income be distributed in a society that no longer needs people to work as much as it once did?

More importantly:

What will we define ourselves by?

For me, that is where the most interesting discussion about abundance begins.