
As Our Jobs Are Automated, Some Say We'll Need a Guaranteed Basic Income - paulpauper
http://www.npr.org/2016/09/24/495186758/as-our-jobs-are-automated-some-say-well-need-a-guaranteed-basic-income
======
anovikov
I seriously doubt it could be realistically implemented. More probable outcome
is ballooning law enforcement costs due to significant fraction of population
becoming unemployable and resorting to crime, and almost endless, Japan-style
economic stagnation in all developed countries. Sorry for sounding pessimist.

This time it gets serious and software is going to really eat the world. By
the way in some countries (like Belarus) there is already significant public
backlash against programmers because people see their incomes as unfair
profiting at the expense of others.

~~~
cmurf
Really? You think that's more realistic than just taking it from the top 0.1%?
There was a time in this country for nearly 40 years where the top tax bracket
was above 75%, and for quite a while it was 91%, and for a short while it was
94%. Basically it was a policy of not letting a small number of people take
all of the marbles. There is, in fact, a way to avoid that tax, it's called
start a new business or expand one - those costs are tax deductible. The
problem is tax policy at the top end is basically saying some tiny number of
people can be hoarders, not innovate, and then aristocratically hand it off to
their kids in the form of trusts that don't pay inheritance tax.

Very possibly some kind of basic income would help people be more mobile, move
from expensive cities to less expensive cities. But I also think as likely is
higher taxes would incentivize the very rich to invest. Rich investors = good.
Rich savers = bad.

~~~
svantana
This I don't get -- why are rich savers bad? How can a large number in some
bank account possibly affect anyone else's life in any tangible way? The way I
see it, the 'problem' with rich folks is when they use up a disproportionate
amount of resources without creating any value, e.g. buying land, houses, cars
and employing people to do their pointless (from society's perspective)
bidding. I.e. _spending_ money.

~~~
chimeracoder
> This I don't get -- why are rich savers bad? How can a large number in some
> bank account possibly affect anyone else's life in any tangible way?

Quite the opposite - savings are integral to a healthy economy.

Investment (in an aggregate economy) must equal savings; this is an identity,
not an equation. Any money that is invested (whether loaned to private
individuals to buy a house or car, or whether invested by the state into
public infrastructure) - all that requires others' savings in order to happen.

For some reason, people get mad when they think of other people "hoarding"
money. But in reality, there's no such thing as "hoarding" money. You can
hoard a rivalrous resource, but you can't hoard fiat money.

~~~
ZenoArrow
> "Investment (in an aggregate economy) must equal savings; this is an
> identity, not an equation. Any money that is invested (whether loaned to
> private individuals to buy a house or car, or whether invested by the state
> into public infrastructure) - all that requires others' savings in order to
> happen."

Sorry to say but whilst what you say makes logical sense, it is in fact wrong.

When a bank makes someone a loan for a house, for example, it isn't based on
anyone's savings. It's based on nothing. Creating the loan creates brand new
money, backed by the value of the same loan. In other words, when the bank
gives you the money for the loan, it is the contract to pay that loan back
which is the asset the bank gets in exchange.

As for hoarding fiat money, it absolutely is a real thing, but it comes in
many forms. When it comes to uses of money, not all uses are equal. For
example, increasing house prices rob an economy of its productivity, as money
becomes locked away in a non-productive form. Money can only 'do work' and
help an economy grow as a medium of exchange. It is, in a sense, lubricant for
the economic engine. One of the reasons we have economic inflation as standard
is to ensure there's always enough money in the system to function as a medium
of exchange, counteracting the money that is lost from active use by saving
and other non-productive uses.

That's not to say saving is all bad, it still makes sense at a certain level,
but it's not universally good.

~~~
auxbuss
Money creation is so poorly understood that the Bank of England undertook to
clarify[0]:

• This article explains how the majority of money in the modern economy is
created by commercial banks making loans.

• Money creation in practice differs from some popular misconceptions — banks
do not act simply as intermediaries, lending out deposits that savers place
with them, and nor do they ‘multiply up’ central bank money to create new
loans and deposits.

• The amount of money created in the economy ultimately depends on the
monetary policy of the central bank. In normal times, this is carried out by
setting interest rates. The central bank can also affect the amount of money
directly through purchasing assets or ‘quantitative easing’.

[0]
[http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/quarte...](http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/quarterlybulletin/2014/qb14q1prereleasemoneycreation.pdf)

------
platz
"Take an IPhone - you find a variety of technologies - each one was created by
some government grant... The collective production of wealth, which is then
privately appropriated.. it's very easy to start thinking of basic income as a
dividend that goes to the collective that was responsible for collectively
producting the wealth."

"We need to create a system whereby society stakes a claim to the returns to
aggregate capital, and this claim becomes an income stream that goes to
everyone. I don't see why my children and your children have a right to a
trust fund [or] why Paris Hilton has a right to a trust fund, when nobody else
does, or very few people do.

Think of basic income as a trust fund for all our children - to be financed by
dividends from our aggregate capital, which was after all, created
collectively."

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1eOVU61mZE&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1eOVU61mZE&feature=youtu.be&t=11m12s)

\- Varoufakis

~~~
objectivistbrit
Since WW2 most basic research has been funded by governments, but prior to
WW2, the industrial revolution happened without state funding. Varoufakis'
argument is that since the state has been taxing the productive to fund
research, that gives it a moral right to tax the productive some more.

Paris Hilton obviously didn't earn her money, but her parents chose to give it
to her, and millions of people chose to stay at Hilton hotels. If you assume
ordinary citizens have a right to the money they earn, you have to grant Paris
the same right to her trust fund. (Which is going to be invested or spent
anyway). There's no consistent way to assert the right to violate property
rights, without abolishing property altogether.

~~~
shkkmo
> Varoufakis' argument is that since the state has been taxing the productive
> to fund research, that gives it a moral right to tax the productive some
> more.

Regardless of if the research done prior to WW2 was funded privately or
publicly, that knowledge is part of our shared culture heritage.

The fact is, regardless of how well they run their hotels, the Hiltons could
not be where they are without the travelers who pay to stay at their hotels.
Without the government regulation, infrastructure and security that makes such
travel safe and easy there would not be the market for the Hiltons to have
made their money in.

The government has a critical responsibility for keeping our shared economy
healthy, growing and stable. Taxation to do this is not a moral RIGHT, but a
moral RESPONSIBILITY.

You sound like you think we'd do OK with no taxes, and thus no government.
That is more idealistic and unrealistic than even the most ardently blind
arguments for BI.

~~~
objectivistbrit
The government is needed to enforce the laws. This does not mean the goverment
needs to redistribute wealth, regulate business or manage the economy. A
government which stuck to this role could be funded by tax rates of about
5-8%.

My ideal society would have said funds made by voluntary donations. This is a
far-off ideal, but it is achievable - unless you think humans cannot form a
society without coercion.

~~~
noobermin
Often times, experience suggests people are not saints and will do or not do
things unless compelled by laws and rules.

~~~
objectivistbrit
Re-read my post. Laws are needed, government is needed, taxation and coercion
are not needed.

------
cstanley
So we can all play more video games:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/09/23/why-a...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/09/23/why-
amazing-video-games-could-be-causing-a-big-problem-for-america/)

"Most of the blame for the struggle of male, less-educated workers has been
attributed to lingering weakness in the economy, particularly in male-
dominated industries such as manufacturing. Yet in the new research,
economists from Princeton, the University of Rochester and the University of
Chicago say that an additional reason many of these young men - who don't have
college degrees -- are rejecting work is that they have a better alternative:
living at home and enjoying video games."

~~~
wingless
What else can they do? With the new wave of AI and automation there will be no
jobs left for people with below average intelligence. You will need more and
more researchers and programmers but not everyone can do those jobs.

~~~
wyldfire
> more researchers and programmers but not everyone can do those jobs.

Research is suited to fairly scientific minds but I think programming is
totally something anyone who's interested can do.

Software development continues to modernize and become more accessible. If
you're motivated, I'd say you can definitely do programming. And the best part
is that it applies to virtually any existing job.

~~~
ido
It's easy to think so if you've been programming for a while, but try to teach
programming to kids (or adults) and realize this really does depend on some
inherent ability and/or interest (and this is even with a self-selected group
who chose to go to a programming course).

You probably can get most everyone programming at a basic level, like we did
with reading and writing, by requiring it at a primary school level.

However, a lot of these people will be about as useful as professional
programmers as the average person is as a professional author.

------
levelist_com
I'm curious, and this may have been discussed elsewhere, but how would that
work in a country like the US (both in terms of size of population and
capitalistic greed)? For instance, when student loans became ubiquitous,
universities raised their rates. Now there are many theories as to why that
was but I feel the simplest explanation is that a) it created greater demand,
and b) easy/cheap money (look at ITT). What's to stop rents/mortgages from
increasing, cost of goods increasing, basically the cost of everything going
up b/c a) people have guaranteed money and demand more goods, and b) simple
greed? In my mind it wont be long before that "basic income" isn't enough live
on at all. Now I know this seems to be a difficult problem to solve, but I
don't think throwing "free" currency at it is going to do anything but drive
the value of that currency and it's buying power way down. Im most likely very
wrong ( i have zero knowledge sady enough of money and how markets and
economies work) - I would just love someone to explain to me how this is even
an option - I want to understand?!

~~~
nk1tz
If there is demand for cheap food as well as an assure flow of money into the
hands of that demand, it seems reasonable to believe the market will address
that demand. Am I missing something?

~~~
pyrale
Markets have been given almost half a century to solve world problems, and we
haven't seen these problems solved.

I understand that one may argue that they didn't get the opportunity. But from
macro indicators to flagship cases, what we see is that while market brought
us a wealth of new products, they are slow to solve acute problems, especially
when these problems are hard to explain to the population.

------
endswapper
The Altman quote is on target "I think it’s good to start studying this early.
I’m fairly confident that at some point in the future, as technology continues
to eliminate traditional jobs and massive new wealth gets created, we’re going
to see some version of this at a national scale."

However, it will likely be called something different in the near-term in
order to gather momentum. Often the argument focuses on the concept as opposed
to the practical benefits. Putting it in different terms could serve to
reframe the argument to focus on the benefits.

These are interesting as well: [http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/universal-
basic-income/](http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/universal-basic-income/)
[https://salon.thefamily.co/enough-with-this-basic-income-
bul...](https://salon.thefamily.co/enough-with-this-basic-income-
bullshit-a6bc92e8286b#.p7c3g7g7k)

~~~
objectivistbrit
People who seriously think a basic income future is desirable should invest
the bulk of their research efforts in automation technology. How do you build
a fully automated farm? How do you build a fully automated factory and
logistics network? How do you build a fully automated hospital? How do you
build robots capable of maintaining and fixing all these automated systems?

All these things are way beyond current technology. If they could be built,
we'd effectively be in a Star Trek post-scarcity economy, and money would
probably no longer be needed. That day is a long way off, though.

~~~
endswapper
Automation is reality.

Industry 4.0's path is being charted as we type, and this is posted today in
terms of logistics:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12575147](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12575147)

There are things like hospitals that will be tougher to tackle. Money is the
currency of power, and I don't see us abandoning power any time soon. So,
"Star Trek post-scarcity economy?" I don't think so. However, we will likely
experience a temporary(perhaps decades) imbalance between the supply and
demand of human labor. In that time, elements of a basic income, or practical
equivalents will rise.

I'm not necessarily an advocate of basic income, but an advocate for the basic
welfare of everyone.

------
partycoder
Things can go many ways...

Once being supported by other humans is no longer a requirement for power,
large portions of the population will be to the mercy of elites.

When that happens, it will be up to elites to decide what to do. They might be
already deciding what to do (e.g: [http://www.bilderbergmeetings.org/press-
release.html](http://www.bilderbergmeetings.org/press-release.html), item #9).

They can either:

1) decide that limits will need to be imposed on our demographics and start a
plan of population control. if that population is not already in effect
(zika?)

2) let the market regulate itself, pushing people into poverty and reducing
their fertility and life expectancy.

3) be altruistic and ensure wealth for everyone.

Personally I think altruism will not be a thing. The planet has limits, and
within a few generations we will be reaching our planet's carrying capacity,
this in the context of major nations accumulating armament (e.g:
[https://youtu.be/YoC0Xcjko0A?t=28m16s](https://youtu.be/YoC0Xcjko0A?t=28m16s),
[https://youtu.be/rXSh3ur5XnQ?t=1h16m26s](https://youtu.be/rXSh3ur5XnQ?t=1h16m26s)).

------
jimmywanger
Every time I hear arguments about basic incomes, I think of universe 25.

[http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2015/03/the-amazing-rise-
and-f...](http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2015/03/the-amazing-rise-and-fall-of-
a-rodent-utopia/)

Fundamentally, we're all animals and due to physics and material constraints,
there's scarcity involved. By giving a basic income, we're pretty much
ignoring the fact that eventually we will run out of water and food and
manufactured goods.

~~~
zanny
You can't relate the rodent utopia experiments as a defense of having to keep
people in need of basic necessities to survive or they lose the will to live.

Besides the fact you are comparing rats to people, even the study itself
considers all the localized factors that contributed to societal collapse:

* You are isolating them in a relatively small space with one another.

* You have uncontrolled population growth.

* You are using a species that naturally trends towards "clan wars" for territory.

* They are rats, and thus have nothing productive to do with their time in the absence of survival.

In the same reason you cannot just compare horses to humans and say that when
physical and mental human labor is obsoleted there will be no new jobs for
people because horses do not have the capability to invent their own work,
rats are the same. Fundamental to our establishment of society is our ability
to invent things for us to do beyond the survival every other animal dedicates
their life to.

Also, it is incredibly nihilistic to think that human beings need to toil to
survive or else life is without meaning or we will collapse society.

We already _know_ that in first world countries people reproduce less. That
isn't even a function of economic well being directly but a function of
education, which relates precisely back to how humans aren't just animals
acting on instinct. If your post-scarcity society is uneducated hairless
monkies, yes, they would go the way of the rat colony dystopia. If you have a
culture of education and intellectualism, and let people invent their own
work, you have an actual utopia. It is the same mind that elevated mankind
above all other animals that can stop us from destroying ourselves as we
eliminate survival as a daily concern.

~~~
jimmywanger
> * You are isolating them in a relatively small space with one another. * You
> have uncontrolled population growth. * You are using a species that
> naturally trends towards "clan wars" for territory. * They are rats, and
> thus have nothing productive to do with their time in the absence of
> survival.

Are we talking about rats or humans now? Only your fourth assertion is rat
specific. All the other observations are true of the human condition. We now
have 7.4 billion human beings in the world right now, and it's the developing
countries, you know with clan warfare and living in relatively small spaces
that have uncontrolled population growth.

> Also, it is incredibly nihilistic to think that human beings need to toil to
> survive or else life is without meaning or we will collapse society.

Just because it's nihilistic doesn't mean it doesn't hold truth. It seems that
your objections are rooted more in your worldview and philosophy rather than
objective arguments you're bringing up. They even bring up this point in the
experiment, where he mentioned the "beautiful ones", who forgot how to breed
and spent all day grooming themselves.

> We already know that in first world countries people reproduce less. That
> isn't even a function of economic well being directly but a function of
> education, which relates precisely back to how humans aren't just animals
> acting on instinct.

I don't think it's a function of education. Do you have a citation? You could
easily read this as saying, people in the first world are incented not to have
children, as they have seen how children generally make parents unhappier and
would prefer against that.

> It is the same mind that elevated mankind above all other animals that can
> stop us from destroying ourselves as we eliminate survival as a daily
> concern.

I think that's where the difference lies between our points of view. I think
that most people are creatures of instinct, and our conscious mind is
constantly trying to justify our actions after the fact with logic. If we
really have elevated minds, how come many intelligent and educated people have
differing opinions on things? Why are we still debating global warming, and
having wars over religion?

~~~
zanny
> Are we talking about rats or humans now?

We are not restricted to confined spaces with other people. Even the most
destitute could walk down the street and leave. And we see in people that
_are_ so restricted the same kind of psychological problems you find in the
rats, such as in prisons.

Population growth is not uncontrolled. Educated populations are equalizing and
declining in growth. Once women are educated and empowered in society and
people have a standard of living where their own survival isn't dependent on
many children taking care of them in old age, you see birthrates decline
dramatically.

The clan war problem is truly something mutual, but its something we _might_
be able to surpass one day.

> would prefer against that.

Which isn't something reflected in rats, at all. The population decline was
due to a breakdown of society. We are not having that at all, yet our
replacement rate declines dramatically once you no longer need the kids to
survive in your later years and you are educated on how to avoid getting
pregnant. The only reason rats reproduce like... rats is because they don't
have the rational mind to understand what contraception is, how to use it, and
how it can avoid them the unhappiness later of having kids.

> Why are we still debating global warming, and having wars over religion?

Neither of these are rational arguments. For all intents and purposes,
scientific consensus is the basis of rational thought, and everything else is
emotional response to rationality. It is that scientific process that
separates us from the animalistic emotional squabbles.

~~~
jimmywanger
> The clan war problem is truly something mutual, but its something we might
> be able to surpass one day.

What gives you that assertion? We've been trying to surpass it for literally
thousands of years.

> Neither of these are rational arguments. For all intents and purposes,
> scientific consensus is the basis of rational thought, and everything else
> is emotional response to rationality. It is that scientific process that
> separates us from the animalistic emotional squabbles.

But yet we still have these arguments, even though they're not rational.

Primarily, I don't think we've evolved much in the past couple thousand years.
We are not much smarter than our ancestors. We might have improved nutrition,
but fundamentally we're just cave dwellers that think scary things lurk in the
dark, and make up excuses to justify our actions that are primarily
instinctive.

For instance, a couple of extreme examples. Most people and all scientific
evidence points to the fact that if you eat less and work out more, your life
becomes exponentially better, and you tend to lose weight. There's a fringe
movement that comes in with the idea that you can be healthy at every size
(HAES) which goes against all science, just so you can feel good about being
fat and unhealthy.

Also, WRT to your comments about population declining naturally, the Catholic
Church is a huge bulwark against that. They're even against pulling out. Every
time I see a commercial about how somebody had four children starve to death,
I think to myself not "What an unfortunate person", but "Just stop having kids
and slowly torturing them to death by hunger."

My main point is that we already have conclusions we want to reach, mostly
caused by biological instincts, and we use our logical brains to justify the
decisions to ourselves, so we can get to sleep at night. We're not really that
much more elevated than animals, if elevated at all.

------
h4nkoslo
I haven't heard a good political-economic explanation of how a universal basic
income that actually finances the living expenses of a large portion of the
population avoids spiraling into yet another welfare program.

The point of a UBI in the academic literature is to enable dismantling of
high-overhead welfare state in favor of a low-overhead and higher-level grant
(check out eg the overhead of Social Security Retirement income vs Social
Security Disability income), but that tradeoff is somehow never actually
offered.

~~~
ZenoArrow
> "I haven't heard a good political-economic explanation of how a universal
> basic income that actually finances the living expenses of a large portion
> of the population avoids spiraling into yet another welfare program.

The point of a UBI in the academic literature is to enable dismantling of
high-overhead welfare state in favor of a low-overhead and higher-level grant
(check out eg the overhead of Social Security Retirement income vs Social
Security Disability income), but that tradeoff is somehow never actually
offered."

Two main points:

1\. UBI is a form of welfare, but if you're concerned about UBI spiraling into
a welfare program in the sense of means-tested welfare, why would it? If
everyone gets the same, and the basic needs are all met (including free
education and free healthcare) the only reason it would change into a means-
tested program is if the government couldn't afford it. Which leads us onto
point 2...

2\. When it comes to financing UBI, it's best not to do so through taxation.
Instead you do so through money creation. At the moment the system used in
countries like the UK and US for money creation effectively is a money-making
venture for the banking system. By moving to debt-free money and using UBI as
the vehicle for new money to reach the system, you minimise the risk of UBI
contributing to government debt.

Lastly, there is another way to not use UBI but still tackle the same issues,
and that's to make the basics of life free for all. However, I'd suggest that
would require coordinated effort on the international level, UBI seems like a
more realistic transitionary approach.

------
misnamed
It's worth looking into in advance, but not writing about every week. It's a
bridge we'll cross if and when we come to it. So far, automation has displaced
some jobs and created others. Will it start doing the former more than the
latter? Only time will tell - we are not there yet.

------
Mendenhall
My issue is the power over the people that the Basic Income would give the
government. "Vote for me and basic income goes up!!" and the ways it will be
manipulated by those in government in 10,20,100 years. Sounds good, but I can
think of a million ways this can easily be abused.

~~~
zajd
How is this any different from "Vote for me and taxes go down!!"? At least
we'd have a different choice.

~~~
Mendenhall
For me its different in a few ways. For one the amount given will never go
down, people would flip. Second by the sales pitch of "taxes goes down" the
government does not get more control over and of the money. Vast majority
don't like the idea of taxes being raised on them no matter who they are.

The sales pitch of "get more money" will also be used to hide and justify
taxes going up etc. They will do things like only talk about how you get more
money and not mention things like they will tax more. Its an easier more
manipulative sales pitch that it becomes capable of.

Also over the course of time tons of changes, additions, etc will be added to
it. I am not completely against the idea, it sounds great in practice but I
just see way too many things that can go wrong.

I also don't think its wise to put too many eggs in one basket.

~~~
zajd
> Vast majority don't like the idea of taxes being raised on them no matter
> who they are.

I don't know, people in my town regularly vote for tax increases and vote for
politicians who want to raise taxes. Seems like a political issue tbqh.

------
i_am_olo
Hum, do we really need to see this as white and black. Work or no-work? Why
not just introduce 30 hours/week or even 25 hours/week. And by that I mean
employees keep the same weekly salary, companies use the gain in productivity
by automation to give back some family time to employees. What we get in
exchange, is one or 2 extra days of consumer spending. People tend to spend
more during weekends anyways, so everybody is a winner. We keep the same
salary, we have an extra day free in the week, companies get the 15% increase
in consumption, and get slowly ready for full work automation.

~~~
zanny
Businesses don't want to hire people at 20 hours a week if they are willing to
work 40. And this isn't black and white - we have been in transition to mental
labor automation for the past 50 years. We have just been replacing desirable
industry jobs with service jobs that people hate with a passion, as wealth
inequality grows and those dropped out of economic potential switch to
basically waiting on those that have not yet fallen.

UBI I would argue is much more desirable, if you were going to try to legally
force 20 hour work weeks. UBI actually lets you absolve a lot of historical
regulation that holds industries and growth back, that was all established as
an attempt to protect the poor and uneducated from exploitation. When everyone
has an easily accessible minimum standard of living, regulations in the
workplace can be retired to enable more innovation since the workers can
finally negotiate evenly with the employer rather than being exploited to
survive. It also lets those workers with the ethic to do so to spend as much
time as they want making as much money as they want, knowing they won't starve
or go homeless when they stop.

Either you keep cracking up the extreme regulatory machine currently
asphyxiating the American corporate sphere (ever wonder why _all_ the
innovation is in software? It isn't just because its new, it is also because
relative to almost everything else it is extremely unregulated) or you just
use increased taxes on unfettered growth to provide for the masses so that the
unleashed potential doesn't destroy lives.

~~~
i_am_olo
So basicly, let's deploy UBI, and if people want to work 3-4 day weeks, it is
up to them. I agree with this idea, and it clears up the work-no-work part of
my argument. I just felt that UBI is such a big step, that just lowering the
number of weekly hours had a precedent (from 7 to current 5 days a week) and
was not associated with a more leftist sentiment, thus being easier to pass.

~~~
zanny
UBI is as big a step as you want to make it. Alaska has an effective UBI with
its dividend from oil revenue, and nothing really stops you from starting it
at a lower amount and ramping it up over time.

------
Animats
Eatsa is not automated. It's just an automat[1], with people in a conventional
kitchen in back filling the glass-fronted boxes.

The Government as the employer of last resort (see Works Progress
Administration) has a better track record than a basic income. Plus you get a
lot more infrastructure built.

[1] [http://www.theautomat.com/](http://www.theautomat.com/)

------
beatpanda
There's a bigger question to be asking here, which is that once we've reached
a point where labor is not required for the provision of basic needs, are we
going to liberate all of humanity from labor, or are we going to let a smaller
and smaller fraction of the population horde the benefits of automation?

I believe we can liberate humanity from forced labor in my lifetime. And I
think that the product of that liberation, in terms of cultural production and
scientific discovery, will have a bigger impact on human civilization than
anything we've seen in recorded history. Because when people don't have to be
baristas to pay the rent, and have the resources to pursue whatever they were
really passionate about before they had a landlord, beautiful things will
develop.

"Basic income" is one possible tool in the box but it's not the only one. And
instead of having dumb arguments about the minutiae of handing out free
currency in our economic system as it's currently constituted, I would rather
see more debate about the _principle_.

~~~
gauto
Agreed. Once we build a clanking replicator, or it's biological/nano
counterpart, we'll be approaching a state where thought manifests reality.

As a thought experiment, if every one has a replication device like in Star
Trek or Drexler's universal assembler, how will the materials and energy to
run such a device be distributed? Presumably we would allocate some to
everyone, which would function as a basic income.

If we continue on the current path where resources are consolidated into the
hands of the few, and these few have no need for the labor of the masses...

------
madengr
Article shows a person pulling a bowl from a cubby at Eatsa. No different than
an Automat; what's old is new again.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automat)

------
bikamonki
The error here is to assume an isolated development of one trend. If AI
becomes as sophisticated as imagined, it will make most (if not all) other
technologies evolve with it. When talking about manufacturing/production,
better tech correlates to lower production costs, lower prices. If you still
pay $500 for a mobile phone then, it is more a subject of brandwashing than
economics. Same thing with services, medicines, food, etc. In sum: we'll need
less money. If that money comes from universal min wage, or from working less
hours, or from working more hours at lower wages, seems irrelevant next to
this question: who will own AI?

------
dominotw
If I am getting free money, is 'society' going to be my boss, but in real
life? Will I be more subservient to society than I currently am? What is my
role in society, what am I giving back to it?

~~~
Qantourisc
Some people will be giving back. Point is not all can and want. For some a job
might even be a luxury.

Your role in society now becomes: not being a problem because you have no
job/money. That is why they give you money.

------
habosa
Basic income aside (I really like the idea) I don't agree with the general
premise that we will all be automated out of a job. I think it's ignoring a
lot of the human qualities that have created the world around us.

In the past ~300 years we've automated more than we could ever have imagined.
Our basic needs are produced in massive quantities in factories that rely on
humans only for orchestration. Yet we don't work much less than we did in the
past (per person or as an economy). We still work 40-50 hours a week, 48-50
weeks a year. So why are we convinced that a life where we don't have to (or
choose to) work is right around the corner?

We are underestimating the human desire for novelty and an ever-increasing
standard of living. Huge new product categories will spring into existence and
we'll discover we suddenly want these new things, really badly. This will
create opportunity for labor to meet the demand, just as it always has,

What _will_ change is the distribution of rewards. Each human becomes more and
more productive as technology advances as a whole. Look at the market cap of a
tech company with 50,000 employees versus an oil or automotive company from 30
years ago. This value is captured by the executives and investors, employee
pay is not keeping up with employee value.

~~~
wott
> _We still work 40-50 hours a week, 48-50 weeks a year._

There also exist civilised countries.

------
bunkydoo
Basic income probably isn't the answer, but instead basic needs being met
through education and proper allocation of resources is a very viable answer.
FDR had a vision during his time in office which was for every person to own
land. Theoretically, if everyone had access to use some amount of land through
entitlement - they would be able to use natural means to provide themselves
and their family with certain basic needs like food and shelter. With the
advent of technology and GMO crops - anyone should be able to understand
growing their own food and building their own home when suddenly presented
with more free time in the absence of traditional industrial work. I hate to
go all Atlas Shrugged on y'all - but Galt's Gulch was effectively this. It was
a commune that recognized an individual's power to provide for themselves when
presented with the means to meet their basic human needs.

~~~
erentz
When I visited some of the smaller pacific islands the question of
unemployment benefits came up and the response was basically what you
describe. On the island there's enough room for everyone to live and grow food
and take care of themselves. Presumably with the help of others if they are
incapacitated.

I'm not sure how that can work though on a global scale of 7 billion people
while also allowing for the aggregation of people into cities that is so
necessary for everything our modern civilization builds.

On top of this naturally you now have unfairness in the system as some peoples
land will be better than others, and by virtue they will be richer than others
through greater productivity.

In the end UBI works around all this and simply says - let the market sort it
out, so that the best uses of capital, land, people's time can be found, but
we're going give people enough to live so that if the most efficient result is
that half the population sits on their hands and the other half work
programming robots, then from a systems perspective we are adequately
compensating those half that sit on their hands for their misfortune not to be
a robot programmer.

------
amatic
I think the society might shift toward more entrepreneurial lifestyle. More
and more people will own automatons, robots, AIs that do stuff for them, and
either use or sell the results of their labor. There will likely be a scale of
'intelligence' of robots - some might be similar to dogs or dolphins or highly
specialized for particular jobs. Lots of people might own taxi cars that work
for them. Or a bunch of robot-workers that build houses. Or robot actors or
something. You rent them out, lease them, make some money, take care of their
energy needs, fix them up, maybe train them for other jobs...

------
Koshkin
An alternative to the basic income is _free_ access to (basic) food, shelter,
health services, education, etc. Which is called (basically) socialism. The
(important) difference between that and basic income is that with basic income
you get _free_ access to non-essentials, such as entertainment, restaurants,
alcohol, tobacco, etc.

------
eip
The solution that is more likely to be implemented is a culling of the herd.
Sad but true.

------
nokya
Good thing Swiss citizens just refused the basic income, by vote. Goes along
with today's vote: Swiss have authorized their own government to perform
surveillance on them to "prevent terrorism"...

------
protomyth
At this point, I have grown sour on Guaranteed Basic Income and would rather a
Prorated Guaranteed Minimum Income. I do realize it would be more open to
fraud, but I just cannot see something without means testing going into
effect. I would also hope the thing pays out in daily amounts, as opposed to
the once a month problem of our current payments.

I still believe there will be non-ai jobs. In the near term, I'm wondering
what an industry / government acceptable certificate (trade program) would be
for robot technician. The government could probably help a lot of job
prospects if it banned companies from barring third-party service of robots.

~~~
mattmanser
The reason no-one wants means testing is that it adds a massive bureaucratic
overhead to the system, which actually defies part of the point of basic
income, which is to get rid of most other, costly to run, social programs.

~~~
protomyth
I believe that GMI also gets rid of all the other social programs. I just
don't think it will fly that Bill Gates gets a payment. That is going to be a
big opposition to overcome.

I don't get where you can say "no one" since plenty of people want means
testing for Social Security, etc. right now.

------
grondilu
What about we let the prices fell slowly towards zero as automation makes
things cheaper and cheaper to produce?

What's the point of distributing money if things are free?

~~~
andruby
That was Karl Marx's plan. Didn't pan out perfectly though.

Most people just want more and more stuff. Cheaper prices will only result in
people buyijg more.

~~~
ZenoArrow
As the cost of production falls and demand increases, I'm fairly confident the
cost of materials will rise, if we continue to live in a capitalist society
that'll be the mechanism that controls the level of demand. The other option
that could work is more material wealth in the commons, for example sharing
the use of cars rather than owning one outright.

------
gjolund
Basic income would be the end of democracy.

------
barpet
Guaranteed income is not a solution. Sure housing and food are the most 2
important things but people need to feel they are needed in the society.

~~~
ZenoArrow
> "people need to feel they are needed in the society."

That can be achieved in different ways. The health of communities does not
need to rely on earning money, there are plenty of other ways to build a
vibrant society that still values the contribution of individuals.

------
FrozenVoid
We are approaching a level of technology which is not human-oriented but
software-oriented: the crucial idea here is that the transition will be not
about "jobs will be harder or require more intelligence" \- its about the
emergence of artificial labor pool that is inherently better, smarter and less
demanding. There is no way to "retrain people" to compete with robots, there
is only "retreat to segments" where automation hasn't arrived yet - a narrower
subset of potential jobs(there are no magical 'new jobs' coming). Lets take
for example Joe The Programmer as someone who doesn't fear being automated.:
He is confident he can write software better than a program trained to do so,
and all his life beliefs hinge on that idea. He could do a less mentally-
challenging job - but they are all taken by robots and automatons, doing it at
fraction of minimum wage. Suppose a neural-net generator emerges that can
produce software from requirements and diagrams of the middle management
types. At first its used only for the simplest, mind-numbing tasks or viewed
as debug aid. It develops to covers creation of modular pieces of code and its
code quality is superb. Now the time come and grown complex enough to create
functional software by itself without human input. The management looks at it,
and decides to cut down on their software division. Jobs in the segments
become fewer and fewer. Joe The Programmer now has to retrain himself to do
something the code generator can't do, or hasn't expanded to area yet. But
with progress there is nothing left, the most complex software can be done
with minimal bugs and without unreliable human programmers. Software proven
itself much cheaper to maintain with minimal staff - even it will be
eventually replaced by helper software. Joe The Programmer is now fired. Now
that there is no need for much middle management, as there is little to
manage: the company shrinks and becomes more productive. At ultimate point the
key personnel/directors/Chief officers are replaced by expert systems trained
with their domain knowledge and the company become a purely digital entity
producing income for its owners or shareholders. There is no point adding
human back in the chain, as it will reduce efficiency and increase
complexity(labor laws, taxes, paper trails,etc).

What is key here, is we only lack the software..the hardware is here now. i.e.
all this retraining/re-specialization of the labor market will not matter,
when software will be also "re-trained"(neural nets, generic
algorithms,general artificial intelligence ) much cheaper to do equivalent of
a human mind-work. Now it simply a hardware problem: At X investment a machine
would outperform similar X investment for a human worker/employee, with none
of the extra needs/limitations/laws regulating labor. Obviously the result in
mass poverty and breakdown of class-based society if there is no moderating
factor: basic income becomes a necessity, not an option "to stabilize the
economy" \- without it there is no economy and no society(as even third-world
countries depend on job(for a very liberal definition of a job) income
existing).

~~~
inlineint
The company probabaly can't entirely be replaced by machines because there
would be still a need for someone who is familiar with decent tech and is
responsible for selection of technology stack, because there would be a number
of competing AI workers manufacturers.

