Unusually for a journalist, I was once a billionaire. It was during a trip to Angola after a bout of hyperinflation; one dinner cost me a billion kwanzas reajustados. Despite my brief membership of this widely vilified minority, I do not take it personally when politicians and activists blame billionaires for all the world’s ills, as they increasingly do. In fact, as we report this week, much of the vilification is undeserved: most billionaire wealth these days is acquired not from inheritance or cronyism but in competitive industries, typically in ways that benefit the public. This is even true in some authoritarian countries, such as China.

In any case, if Elon Musk is correct, in a few years’ time money will not matter, even his own $750bn fortune. In an extraordinary interview with Zanny Minton Beddoes, our editor-in-chief, Mr Musk predicts that AI will create such abundance that there will soon be little point in accumulating old-fashioned currency units.

This is a comforting thought. However, he also predicts that AI will be so much more intelligent than humans that it will be as likely to obey us as it will be to take orders from chimpanzees. So we had better instil in it benign values before we lose control of it—as the recent escape of an AI model from a supposedly secure cage reminds us. Mr Musk thinks the best way to ensure that the technology is safe is for AI pioneers such as himself to keep tabs on one another, with the government as a back-up.

Not everyone will find this reassuring. Tim O’Reilly, a venture capitalist, argues in a “By Invitation” column that Mr Musk is creating a form of capitalism that would make Adam Smith shudder, by removing the normal controls that shareholders have over bosses. Our Free Exchange column looks at the history of Luddism. And our cover leader argues that Mr Musk’s musings make clear that the world is utterly unprepared for a technology that could throw everything up in the air. You can watch Zanny’s interview with Mr Musk on The Insider now. It is gripping.