Questions about the last day of work, AI and universal income
The most common questions about lastday.at, artificial intelligence, robots and universal basic income. Each answer links to timeline events, all of them sourced.
What is the last day of work on Earth?
For lastday.at, it is March 20, 2030: the date this site sets for the end of the age when people had to work to live, and for the start of universal income. It is a bet, not a certainty. The timeline shows the facts and forecasts that lead to it, each with a source.
See on the timeline: Day zero (2030)
Why March 20, 2030?
In 1930, the economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that within a hundred years productivity would allow a fifteen-hour week. Almost a century later, AI forecasts converge on the end of this decade: Shane Legg gives a 50% chance of artificial general intelligence by 2028, Ray Kurzweil predicts a human-level machine in 2029 and Demis Hassabis talks about 50% by 2030. The March equinox, when day and night are the same length, marks the turning point.
See on the timeline: Keynes predicts the 15-hour week for 2030 (1930), 50% chance of minimal AGI (2028), A machine passes the Turing test (2029), 50% chance of AGI (2030)
Will artificial intelligence end jobs?
The first signs are already in the data. A Stanford study found a 13% drop in employment for 22 to 25 year olds in the occupations most exposed to AI, and in 2026 AI became the top stated reason for layoffs in the United States. The World Economic Forum expects 92 million jobs eliminated and 170 million created by 2030. The question is no longer whether work changes, but how fast.
See on the timeline: Stanford: young workers lose jobs to AI (2025), AI becomes the top reason for layoffs (2026), 92 million jobs eliminated (2030)
Will robots do manual work?
For decades, Moravec’s paradox held that walking and grasping objects was harder for a machine than playing chess. That is changing: a Unitree humanoid cost $16,000 in 2024 and fell below $5,000 in 2026, Amazon passed 1 million robots, and models like Gemini Robotics 2 make robots follow everyday sentences.
See on the timeline: Moravec's paradox (1988), Unitree G1: a humanoid for $16,000 (2024), A humanoid for under $5,000 (2026), Amazon reaches 1 million robots (2025), Gemini Robotics 2 controls the whole body (2026)
What is universal basic income?
It is a regular cash payment, the same for everyone and with no conditions such as working or proving poverty. The idea is old: Thomas Paine proposed a capital grant for everyone in 1797. Today there are trials in Kenya, Finland, the United States and Maricá, Brazil, and Alaska has paid an annual dividend to every resident since 1982.
See on the timeline: Paine proposes a capital sum for everyone at 21 (1797), Alaska pays the first oil dividend (1982), Finland pays a basic income to the unemployed (2017), Kenya: basic income for 12 years (2017), Maricá pays R$230 per person (2025)
Does Brazil have universal basic income?
It has a law: Law 10,835 of 2004, by senator Eduardo Suplicy, created a citizen’s basic income and is described as the first national law of its kind. It was never fully implemented, and in 2021 Brazil’s Supreme Court ordered the government to regulate it. Bolsa Família is a conditional cash transfer, not universal, and the city of Maricá pays a municipal basic income in its own local currency.
See on the timeline: Brazil passes a universal basic income law (2004), The STF orders basic income to be implemented (2021), Bolsa Família is born (2003), Maricá expands its basic income in its own currency (2019)
Are automata a new idea?
No. Around 350 BC, Aristotle imagined tools that would work by themselves and make slaves unnecessary. In Alexandria, Ctesibius created the first automatic control and Heron built a programmed puppet theater. Al-Jazari described 50 machines in 1206, and Jaquet-Droz’s Writer, from 1774, still writes sentences on its own.
See on the timeline: Aristotle imagines tools that work on their own (c. 350 BC), The float that invented automatic control (c. 270 BC), Hero and the first vending machine (c. 62 AD), Al-Jazari and the 50 ingenious machines (1206), The Writer, a programmable automaton (1774)
Will office work end?
It is the first big category in the line of fire. Microsoft’s Mustafa Suleyman said in 2026 that most tasks of lawyers, accountants and marketers will be automated within 12 to 18 months, and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei warned that half of entry-level office jobs could disappear within five years. lastday.at forecasts the end of office work in 2027.
See on the timeline: Office tasks fully automated (2027), Amodei: half of entry-level jobs could vanish (2025), The end of office work (2027)
When will AI become smarter than humans?
Forecasts vary, but they cluster between 2027 and 2030. Elon Musk has talked about AI smarter than any human by the end of 2027 and than all of humanity combined around 2030, and Ray Kurzweil still holds 2029 for a machine passing the Turing test.
See on the timeline: AI smarter than any human (2027), A machine passes the Turing test (2029), Smarter than all of humanity (2030)
Are lastday.at’s forecasts certainties?
No. Each forecast says who made it, when and where, with a link to the source. The few forecasts made by lastday.at itself are labeled as such, and Day zero is a bet. The timeline also shows forecasts pointing the other way, such as Gartner’s on companies that will keep human support agents.
See on the timeline: Day zero (2030), Half give up on cutting all service agents (2027)
lastday.at tells the story of the machines that gradually took over human work, from ancient Egypt to artificial intelligence, and counts down to the last day of work on Earth: March 20, 2030.