"Beware the Time Robots Get a Credit Card" – A Warning from 2010 Becoming Reality

Back in 2010, during a panel discussion, I said something that made a few people laugh and others roll their eyes:

“Beware the time robots will have a credit card.”

Fifteen years later, one of those co-panelists called me and said, “You were right.”

Let me explain what I meant back then — and why it matters even more today.

The Rich Man’s Real Problem: Humans

Let’s be brutally honest. The biggest problem billionaires face isn’t competition. It’s us — the workers.

Not entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs are visionaries. They risk everything to build something better, something meaningful. No — I’m talking about billionaires, the collectors. The hoarders. The ones who treat money as the only goal. Their problem? Labor.

Because labor means humans. And humans come with “flaws”:

• They need rest.

• They demand rights.

• They expect payment.

• They eventually die.

Yet, the system can’t survive without them. Workers are needed not only to build products but to buy them too. A neat little cycle. A little too human, though, for the billionaire's liking.

So how do you break the cycle?

Phase One: Replace the Worker

Hello, automation.
Hello, AI.

No more strikes. No sick days. No complaints. Just efficiency.

Phase Two: Replace the Consumer

This is where it gets wild.
It’s not just about replacing the worker. It’s about removing the need for humans altogether.

Enter: the robot with a credit card.

Machines producing. Machines consuming. A closed-loop economy where billionaires still profit — without us. That’s what I meant in 2010. That’s what’s happening now.

Example? Driverless Cars.

While taxi unions fought Uber, no one prepared for what came next: full automation.
I can now own a self-driving car that drops my family to school, to work, to shopping — no taxi ever again. No need to park. No need to drive.
I read. I work. I relax.
Who needs a taxi driver anymore?

That’s how fast the system moves when we cling to the old rules.

So Should We Fight Technology? No.

You can’t stop evolution.
But what you can stop is your belief that 9-to-5 is normal.
Because that "normal" was designed by the same people now replacing you.

We don’t need to fight machines.
We need to create our own protected economy.
We need to stop waiting for someone to “give us” a job and start building our own market.

The Avatar Economy: A Market Without Borders or Bosses

In the Metaverse, avatars are the new citizens.
They are our products, our art, our expression.
We build them. We sell to them. We evolve with them.

Digital fashion, storylines, environments, emotions, games, comics, AI psychology, simulated societies…
An infinite marketplace of infinite needs.
And no human is oppressed.
No one is “hired” or “fired.”
We create. We trade. We grow.
That’s the Avatar Economy.

Crazy? Fiction? A sci-fi script?

That’s what they said to me in 2010.
Now those same skeptics call to tell me I was right — especially as Trump and others lean into these AI-powered systems of control and capital.

From Citizenship to Netizenship

If citizenship is being handed over to robots, let’s not beg to keep our place.
Let’s move forward.
Let’s build Metaverse spaces filled with avatars.
Let’s acquire netizenship.

Work with AI, not for billionaires.
Create worlds.
Own your value.
Be the architect of your future — not the product.

The robots will get credit cards.
Make sure you're not just watching —
Be the one writing the new economy.