Many people are scared. AI is taking over the economy — especially online. Computer science majors are complaining, writers are worried, Hollywood filmmakers have voiced their concerns, and countless other industries will soon be affected too.

Some are asking the big question: What happens when AI literally takes all the jobs?

Taxi drivers will disappear once self-driving technology is perfected — maybe even within this decade. Human doctors might become obsolete. There’s even an argument that psychologists are replaceable today, as their job is purely language based which AI can already do. The same could be said for teachers, copywriters, journalists, and many more professions.

At some point, a combination of AI and robotics might make human manual labor a thing of the past as well. Within twenty years, construction workers, plumbers, carpenters, and similar trades could all be automated.

Let’s assume this scenario unfolds, and all jobs are done cheaper, better, and safer by AI and robots. The question then becomes: How will humans pay for food?

In such a future, we must remember that all work would be done without labor costs. Human workers require payment — you have to give someone a few dollars to clean a toilet, or they’ll never do it. But a robot will do it simply because it’s programmed to.

The same logic applies to every other job. Robots don’t need monetary incentives; they just need the right code. Therefore, an economy without human labor would be an economy without labor costs.

As a result, products in that economy would become far cheaper — and many might even be completely free.

The real question, then, is not how goods and services are produced, but who gets access to them, and how the necessary resources are distributed. Robots could mine lithium and manufacture batteries at virtually no cost, but who decides how that lithium — and the finished batteries — are distributed?

The good news is that this might not be a problem for politicians or business leaders to solve. If AI and robots are more efficient at every job, they would also be better politicians and business managers.

Thus, in this thought experiment, it would ultimately be the robots themselves deciding the best way to distribute resources and products to humans (at some point even in a fully cost-free economy).