As artificial intelligence wipes out jobs and compounds the environmental issues faced on Earth, tech billionaires have been touting what they see as the jobs of the future: working in space.

"In 2035, that graduating college student, if they still go to college at all, could very well be leaving on a mission to explore the solar system on a spaceship in some completely new, exciting, well-paid, super-interesting job," Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, has said, according to Fortune.

Jeff Bezos, one of the world's richest men, has made a similar prognostication, with his spaceflight company Blue Origin working toward "a future where millions of people will live and work in space with a single-minded purpose: to restore and sustain Earth," per Fortune.

This emphasis on the hypothetical space-based jobs of the future has come as AI is already taking away important employment opportunities.

A new study by researchers at Stanford University found that entry-level jobs, typically filled by those college graduates Altman referenced, have been hit particularly hard. 

"We find that since the widespread adoption of generative AI, early-career workers (aged 22-25) in the most AI-exposed occupations have experienced a 13% relative decline in employment even after controlling for firm-level shocks," the authors found.

The fields most impacted by AI-related job losses include software programming and customer service. Most at risk were roles that AI was able to completely automate, rather than positions that use AI to augment the work. 

Despite these ground-level problems, many of today's tech billionaires have their eyes set on the stars.

In addition to Altman and Bezos, Elon Musk, often hailed as the world's richest person, has long expressed his fantasies about a science-fiction future, even predicting that a human-crewed flight to Mars would launch as soon as 2028, according to Fortune. 

Of course, Musk is the same person who predicted in 2015 that Tesla's self-driving technology would be fully autonomous within two years, among other failed prognostications, as detailed in Wired.

Who should be paying for space exploration? The government 🏛️ Private companies 💰 A mix of both 🤝 It's a waste of money 👎 Click your choice to see results and speak your mind.

While Tesla finally did roll out its autonomous Robotaxis this year, those vehicles have infamously employed on-board human safety monitors.

Bucking the trend of space-obsessed tech billionaires, Bill Gates has directed his focus toward the numerous serious problems currently affecting life on Earth.

"Space?" Gates questioned during a 2021 interview with comedian James Corden, according to Fortune. "We have a lot to do here on Earth." 

In a 2023 interview, Gates expanded on these thoughts. 

"It's actually quite expensive to go to Mars," he told the BBC in 2023. "You can buy measles vaccines and save lives for $1,000 per life saved." 

"And so [that] just kind of grounds you," he continued. "As in — don't go to Mars."

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