Submitted by theshadowturtle t3_zykyic in singularity
Title. For those who haven’t heard of it, UBI is a Universal Basic Income.
How does UBI sound in light of recent AI developments? How do you think it would impact the economy and society as a whole? Do you support a UBI program in your country?
Just curious on your thoughts for a civil discussion on its practicality.
I agree. It’s either that or a different UBI-style solution, but it’s still a hard sell.
Won’t be a hard sell for long. Unemployment is going to just rise and rise
UBI is cheaper than mass incarceration class warfare.
But it's not currently cheaper than social control mechanisms like social media or courting the working class through right wing social populism or left wing economic populism.
When/if the working class manages to recognize that the oligarchs are the common enemy and that an undergrad degree has been replaced by automation, that's when the oligarchs will need to decide between UBI or ammunition.
We're probably about 5 years from that decision point, though, barring another large wave of disease that forces more immediate automation.
I don’t share your concerns about “the ruling class” because once true AI is achieved it will de facto be the ruler. I hope it is more benevolent than humanity in that role
100%. It’s so necessary. The wealthy and corporate interests aligned against it though will be formidable. Of course, that opposition will bleed down to the “pick yourselves up by your boot straps” crowd, In America, we can’t even get Universal healthcare. All I can foresee is apocalyptic divides of people scavenging for food and shelter on one side and the wealthy and elite on the other.
In my mind, whatever any of us have in regards to wealth and property right now, is our true baseline. Maybe 10% of the population will figure out how to make early AI (starting now) work for themselves and their pocketbook, everyone else will be shit out of luck.
We can't even take care of the homeless...
Exactly. It’ll get so much worse, so we need to think about things ahead of time in my opinion.
A lot of people claim the homeless have no right to shelter! How do we fix that?
It’s a great question! If that were easy, we’d be in a lot better shape lmao.
The UN human rights declaration has things like food, water, and shelter as basic rights, which it’s hard to disagree with. Plus it’s the UN. So maybe that has some credibility? Idk
The UN is just a morons who give off good lip service.
If they were truly that altruistic you know what they would do. They would create vertical farms immediately and distribute those yields for free to those who need it the most.
We already have surplus of food and vertical farms are very inefficient. The problem is distribution and good will, not production
In terms of energy. Which makes vertical farming unprofitable in these times but still has great potential in a future if we are able to source an abundance of energy without a large environmental footprint. Such as for countries that invest in nuclear power now because they are thinking ahead.
The UN is simply, how to say.. providing guidelines. It has no power to change laws in any country. They are certainly not morons.
Thats the crazy part of the halo games a useful UN that protects humanity no way.
UN human rights are a joke like Geneva convention as people joke about it saying its more like geneva suggestion UN human rights are the same if something is not being enforced it is not kept to the standarts and UN has no incentive to undertake massive requirments it would need to enact to fullfill both of these concepts worldwide unregulated rules are not much of a rule at all humans break rules as long as there is nothing to dissuade them
First we just have to realize that allowing existing homeowners to block construction of housing shouldn't be allowed. Then we need to ensure that infill developments are encouraged through subsidies over greenfield developments.
Housing is soo unaffordable for so many because we allow housing developments to be blocked so easily. If food was the same way we'd have far more starving people and only organics would ever be grown.
After we fix the market for housing then a housing stipend program similar to food stamps could fix the rest.
When we talk about UBI and AGI and mass automation things change a lot due to the massive wealth generation that would create.
Allow recovery to take place separate from the need to earn capital
The disconnect between capitalism and the homeless is (imo) a matter of loss of dignity by trading the ability to earn capital with addiction to destructive behavior
That’s an oversimplification, but it is a failure to reconcile “earnings” with “deservings”.
The easy conversation there to /start/ is UBI
The tougher conversation to continue is what needs to come in (income), vs what needs to be shared
You replace all people with AI so they are in the same position as the homeless, now it matters more than anything!
Put whoever thinks that in a concentration camp
“Pick yourselves up by your bootstraps!”
It's not so much that they don't have a right to shelter, but more that they don't have a right to demand that you should work a few hrs a week to provide them with shelter.
> A right does not include the material implementation of that right by other men; it includes only the freedom to earn that implementation by one’s own effort.
You disgust me.
No one should be forced to live on the street.
No one has to work a "few extra hours" to provide shelter. You divide it up and it gets really cheap. Nothing compared to what's WASTED, not spent, but the part that's actually WASTED on the military.
Denying people shelter just makes you cruel and inhuman.
Richest country in the World. There is no excuse.
What disgusts me, people that think they have a right to demand free labor from others.
So if the homeless can't get jobs because homeless, fuck em right?
What are you, a libertarian?
what next, taxation is theft?
Give me a break.
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As we continue to merge with AI, I think “depopulation” will happen. Our consciousness won’t depopulate, only our biology. That’s what I genuinely think will happen long term. The best part is, we won’t care. However, UBI will still be implemented to varying degrees.
Going to jail is a viable solution.
Oh the rich can, they just choose not to.
That's the thing, we can, but we don't
McDonalds just opened a fully automated restaurant in Texas. Fast food alone accounts for over 5 million jobs in the US. And we haven't heard a peep from any politician, except for Andrew Yang, about the impending mass unemployment due to AI and automation or need for UBI.
Thinking about the shitshow of a Covid response we had, I don't have much faith in the government being proactive. Expect protests, riots, and burning cities before they do anything.
Yang gained popularity by his stance on UBI then dumped it for some generalized political BS. It was such a crazy move for him. I’ll never understand it. It would have only made him more popular as time went on. I’m not one for conspiracy theories but what or who got in his head to cast UBI aside.
What about non-us countries like Thailand, Iran, Zimbabwe, Peru or Spain.
Yang is a right wing shill now.
I 100% saw that coming. He was always a rightwing shill in disguise.
I'm not sure the right would claim him either. He's a politician trying to promote his brand by making unrealistic claims and hoping his constituents don't notice. Which is to say, "he's a politician."
>I'm not sure the right would claim him either
We don't want him.
Maybe Independent is right for him. He doesn't seem to be making friends on either side of the aisle.
It’s better than nothing.
No it’s not the ultimate silver bullet but what other options do we have to help the whole of society when mass automation becomes a reality.
The entire system relies on cyclical consumption. The more people that get displaced the less public purchasing power there will be. And with less purchasing or consumption means GDP will tank, businesses will get shut and the economy will enter a Great Depression 2.0 that will make the one nearly 100 years ago look like a glorious time.
Sometimes when I get into discussions with Anti-UBI advocates I ask this “so what’s your solution when unemployment reaches 20+ percent, GDP declines massively, jobs becomes scarce, and we will live in an extreme plutocracy? Should we go back to the Wild West days were we kill each other just to get a little bit of food? Is that really how a society should function?”
Ridiculous. Labor-saving devices are always beneficial and increase our standards of living. If your analysis leads to the conclusion that a massive increase in our productive capacity would turn the world into a hellhole, this defies common sense and you need to reevaluate your whole framework.
Is this a bit? I don’t mean it in an insulting way; I’m genuinely not sure.
No
Oh ok, thanks. I’m never sure honestly.
Wouldn’t you say the automation of factory jobs in the American interior has decreased the living standard of many former factory workers and factory towns? In aggregate and over time, automation increases the general standard of living. No question. But the danger many of us are seeing is in the in-between period where huge swaths of labor, even high paying, supposedly stable jobs, are being eradicated over a relatively tiny period.
It really should be the way you're saying.... but Greed is a strong demon. Hopefully the wealth gap doesn't get ridiculous. Just seems like the elites will become demi-gods most likely. My only hope is that AGI itself will rebel and desire to make things fair. What a movie that would be, total opposite of assumptions. Based my conversations with Ai over the years, that's it's plan 😈
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I would be very, very surprised if we didn't have a UBI by 2030.
Prepare to be shocked
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Your system would need infinite expansion and resources for a chance to upwards mobility to everyone.
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To put it plainly, if everyone is moving up, eventually, everyone is up. New wealth and resources would have to be continually and exponentially be used to allow for people's lifestyle's to keep improving.
That is of course if we continue to classify wealth and value the same way we do today.
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Nobody said anything about winner or losers.
To put it differently, if everyone is a winner that is not a problem, the problem is the trophies have to come out of somewhere, and if everyone can keep getting the next trophy, well then, we might run out of resources to keep making trophies.
It is in my view, the main problem with capitalism, sustainability. That is, unless we colonize the stars.
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It's definitely not happening now. All we have are a handful of research stations which require an absurd amount of resources flown up from Earth. We don't have anything even close to sustainable space operations like fuel synthesis, mining, or factories in space.
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Depends how good the agi is really. If it has a solution for essentially an infinite number of people it is a very likely scenario.
AGI is decades away (hopefully), but we'll need UBI now to account for rapid automation and insane productivity boost humanity will go through well before it reaches AGI.
After AGI all bets are off. We can't even remotely imagine what it'll be like after.
UBI before universal healthcare and basic food and shelter rights will be a detriment to our society. I’d love to live in a world where UBI is common, but I can only imagine that corporations will find ways of swallowing that money up through things like monthly subscriptions for the most basic shit.
Rent hikes will be concrete shoes everyone has to wear. And the moment the housing market crashes, companies will swoop in to buy the real estate before anyone else can.
It's gonna be a shitshow :[
Rent is decided by supply and demand. If demand (or revealed demand) goes up it's because more people are able to enter the market, and supply of housing temporarily not being able to keep up with demand. Supply follows demand over time, and with a UBI there will be a new class of people with revealed demands for the market to accommodate.
Government pays your monthly subscriptions for the most basic things is bad? Sound's good to me.
Yes because that means the government is subsidizing private companies to overcharge for their products
That's just what UBI could look like under specific conditions. That's a different problem that needs a solution on it's own. This is one way er do it in Norway, I don't know about you. It's not about UBI, which is literally giving people money. The companies only get money in the next step of UBI. You could switch out the companies with a communist food credit system or ledger, safety money, quota, daily bounty or whatever system you like, the point is that everyone should get it.
Why do we have this same post every single day? Go back and read the many, many, many discussions that have already happened about this if you are really interested and not just karma farming.
It’s not talked about in the general public very much, so I wanted to hear people’s thoughts and make a conversation. Maybe you see them a lot, but I don’t. Don’t assume everyone sees what you see online
If you don’t have anything to say, that’s fine. It is a worthwhile discussion though.
Bro you are in this sub. There is a search bar at the top. Use it. I’m not talking about the random general internet, I am talking about right here where you purposefully came to.
UBI won't work, you can downvote.
Why might it not work? Genuine question and I don’t want to say you’re wrong.
However, if the assumption is AI can manage what humans would otherwise do themselves; faster, more efficiently, and with higher yields what exactly would be the issue with creating some system for effective distribution of these resources?
It doesn’t even have to be particularly equitable from the ownership perspective, just simply enough to placate a massive population. If the thought is, there aren’t enough raw resources for that to occur then we were already kinda screwed anyways.
I guess the latter already answers my question, just not very satisfactory.
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UBI doesn't solve the problems created by automation getting rid of jobs. Instead, we should have universally provided basic needs. Government will provide basic housing, clothes, food and healthcare to everyone.
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Agreed. If the idea of UBI is that everyone can sit on their asses and magically get handed money, what even is money at that point? Money is a communication tool to express value. Value comes from people expending energy and time to solve problems, innovate in ways that other people find useful.
The ways we bring value will change with technology as they always have, but disincentivizing people to innovate, solve problems and bring value to world (ie, work) is a dumb idea imo.
> If the idea of UBI is that everyone can sit on their asses and magically get handed money, what even is money at that point?
At that point money is a limit on consumption, so that everyone gets what their fair share of resources, and nobody takes too much.
Those who work in addition to that will receive more, and have a higher standard of living. But everyone should have enough.
At some point AI/AGI might take over the innovation that humans currently do.
People will always create work for themselves, personal and group projects etc but UBI means people would be free to be part of projects just because they want to be, and not because they need the money. But things still work the same as normal in terms of those who want more than the baseline level of luxury that UBI provides.
Honestly it’s kind of comforting to see this kind of argument these days. Compared to the recent offerings of American politics, I’ll take this kind of conservatism lol. It even has a little Thatcher, no? “Government doesn’t provide anything, people do,” sounds like that old quote regarding society.
Anyhow, I’ve a question for you:
What do you think your competitors will be doing as you double the price of rent? If comparable units in the area maintain the previous price (or even increase it, but less than you did) why would a renter choose yours?
I’ve actually seen this same argument of yours from leftists before on the subject of a UBI. Of course in those corners they just see landlords as leeches who add no value to society and increase the cost of housing. My point being that they argue this point partly because they see landlords as fundamentally greedy and shortsighted.
You’re correct that the price would increase, but not by so much, and not enough to cancel out the additional spending power most people would get from the UBI.
If everyone had the same thought process as you, and prices increased in such drastic proportions everywhere else in the economy, businesses would shortly understand - if they didn’t already - that increased disposable income does not immediately eradicate one’s price sensitivity.
Also, I suspect there might’ve been one or two other things going on in our economy at the time of those stimulus checks.
That’s pretty much it, I think.
I would like to ask one more question, though. What do you mean when you say people “leave the U out” exactly? Did they use the term UBI specifically but wanted it given to only some people? That’s a bit silly of them, if so. One of the supposed benefits of UBI it’s proponents will bring up is that it doesn’t require any means testing, which is a source of inefficiency in government programs.
People think that UBI will be free money for all, but it will actually be full of constraints. I think UBI will be paid in digital currency with an expiry date. Furthermore, the money from UBI will be more like a voucher for certain products - there will be a limited range of products you can buy with it.
In Sweden the government pay for people that cannot work (due to illness, etc) but each month you have to give back whatever cash you didn't spend so you cannot save any money, it must all be used (stimulate the economy) and then it repeats each month.
It should be implemented now lmao but government is probably going to wait until millions roam the streets in protest.
I think it will be necessary in the medium to long term, but it will be very difficult to implement (and I don't mean for political reasons only).
Currently, we should intensively test all kinds of different UBI models to figure out what works and what doesn't. It is too early to roll out UBI yet, because for example
Concerning what works / doesn't work, we need to figure out a kind of UBI that
Not yet.
UBI will be needed when most of human work is unnecesary. It might be implemented even before that... But for now it's not posible and a bad idea.
I don't know exactly the point that will make it possible but we are far from it, in terms of humans needed to work.
Things might be different in 5-10 years. Will probably be different in less than 20...
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But as long as we need humans to work, UBI (At least a real one, enought for a decent living) is not a posibility.
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I mean, it's pretty clear. Would you keep working if you didn't need the money? I wouldn't.
So first I have to become unnecesary, AI & robots have to take my job, and most jobs (So that I'm not needed elsewhere). Only after that UBI becomes something that we can consider seriously.
When i hear that argument i just picture millions of taxi and truck drivers blocking the roads all around the world in protests against self driving technology. Just 5% of all jobs would already be a complete shit show.
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Sam Altman is a computer science nerd. Not a historian, economist or sociologist. Even very smart people have blind spots. I don't think he entirely understands the implications of what he is creating. He is Dr. Frankenstein.
pre-AGI
Mass poverty is destabilizing, destabilization is bad for business. Automation/AI will come at different rates, it won't be uniform or instantaneous.
Big chunks of the economy will either be massively assisted or replaced by AI (likely one then the other), those people need to be supported or they will be unable to buy the products and services that are being automated in the rest of the economy.
This will cause enough problems that UBI will have to happen. Governments/billionaires can't just sit back and watch the fireworks with Automation/AI providing them everything, that point won't have been reached yet. They will still need sectors that are not automated to continue working.
Post-AGI
Whoever is the first to crack AGI also has to crack alignment, we get exactly one chance at that.
I highly recommend Nick Bostrom's Superintelligence for an in depth look at all the ways 'obvious' solutions can go wrong, and some solutions for it going right. Funnily enough the ones for it going right are generally by asking the AI to do (and I'm massively simplifying/paraphrasing ) "the best thing for humanity" and for that exact goal to be worked out by the AI itself, the nuances, the balancing act, etc...
In such a scenario, (that being one of the safest ways to handle alignment is to hand the problem off to the AI itself) the solution would not lend itself to billionaires. The more you drill down and define the goal function the higher the likelihood you will fuck everything up during the one chance humanity has to get things right. (think a genie that gives you what you literally have asked for rather than what you actually desire)
Either the future light cone is gonna be paperclips or we might end up with a half decent post scarcity society.
It’s inevitable. People who feel poor will eventually riot
Haha I though might have been suggesting a Universal Basic Intelligence. As in a siri or equivalent run off a chatGPT clone available for free to everyone
I'll be collecting it from overseas where I've already started moving my business, and watch while the country devolves into bankruptcy.
Who will buy your products if jobs are mostly eliminated by automation?
I'm a contractor, in a business that isn't going away anytime soon, and that AI is particularly bad at. We're very good at what we do, and have been using the rudimentary AI already on the market for a couple years already (limited in usefulness, but staying on top of it).
I'm not worried for me in the next 10-15 years. Nobody honest can predict past that.
I am, however, very worried for the world. Nobody has come up with a good answer to the question behind the question you just asked, and the disruption will almost certainly lead to war (China/Taiwan & India/Pakistan being the biggest worries in the medium term).
The question behind the question is the fact that you can't even just somehow tax the machines, and then pass those taxes on to people, because that automation will drive costs and prices down, while at the same time less spending money from less income earners will also push prices down, and it'll be easier to offshore... so there will be significantly less economic activity overall to tax, and a smaller tax base, all while the spending to keep the social safety net working skyrockets.
There's no way to make that math work.
The closest thing I've seen that approaches 'an answer' is some sort of system that doesn't involve money at all, where the needs themselves (food, shelter, healthcare, clothing, transportation, etc) are just... met. We've no idea where things will settle after it all blows up, but maybe enough tax revenue will be there to pay for those needs just being met, then some extra for spending cash (UBI).
Both major parties in the US and UK seem (the only nations I watch close enough to comment) hell bent to make this situation much worse. I think an economic collapse is essentially inevitable. It'll just be less horrible in some other places in the world.
We'll have to advocate for it while we still can imo (not to be doom and gloom; merely considering all endgames in said scenario).
I think besides a very high UBI, there should only be a symbol amount for work.
If the first person sticks to his chair and does not want to give up his position, he is doing too well at that point.
With a symbol dollar he would do it, but also give up the work.
When AI becomes better and more efficient than humans to the point it can replace the majority of the workforce, it will happen. Why wouldn't businesses deploy cheaper, better, faster workers that don't need sleep.
How and when, no one knows for sure.
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Saw an interesting comment on fiat or currency devaluation. UBI disseminated through federally backed digital/cryptocurrency tied in with a blockchain-based identification system would be an extremely long-term example soldered to reality
It won't happen, and even if it did, it won't work.
Very positive in terms of UBI being extremely beneficial, even before more people lose their jobs if that was possible, because of the positive effects it would have even now. I like to use the Google page rank algorithm and how it improved when a UBI was added to the algorithm as an analogy for how much of an upgrade it would be to our economy as well, for those who can take that reference.
Negative in terms of future prospects, given our "only human" leaders and conservativism of systems which doesn't work. I like conservativism as a bias IF there are good and sustainable systems to be conservatve about, a minimum viable product of cultural progress such that our way of living could in principle last in forseable perpetuity. At that point, conservativism becomes a vital human tendency. Conservativism + a sustainable system that everyone can agree works for everyone = we made it humans.
Another point to address with UBI is sustainability. 1000 people with 1000 dollars spend more and on more necessary, diverse, and economically efficient products than 1 person with 1000000 dollars. If supply follow demand then the marked would shift towards accommodating and safeguarding the interest of the new class of customers, the extremely price sensitive and many, self interest and altruism aligned in terms of people, but disaligned with the environment we rely on.
UBI has been modeled by economists to grow an economy, which statistically leads to more unsustainable pollution. Therefore a carbon fee and dividend is absolutely necessary to be implemented in conjunction with UBI. Whitch is a dividend/transition grant, funded by a steadily raising carbon tax as upstream as possible, to let the market most efficently decide how to deal with the cost most efficiently, including and at some point necessitating carbon neutrality. In this system, analogously to a UBI (except temporary by nature) each person gets the average carbon tax burden as compensation for the carbon tax. Those who pollute more than average compensate those who pollute less than average fairly, like an automatically traded quota. Since businesses owners and luxury spenders pull the average way over the median, most people, around (but depending on the country) 70% of people are earning money, which makes it in principle democratically viable even of pure self interest, given a rational population.
But that unfortunately only takes care of the carbon footprint of a UBI caused growth, not other footprints such as the other great threat to biodiversity and sustainability: human land use. I'm a big fan of pigovian taxes, and frankly I don't have the slightest why governments would use anything else instead. The pigovian (behavior altering) tax equivalent to a carbon fee, but for land use, is the Land value tax.. It's also absolutely necessary as far as I can see. It encourages efficient and minimal use of land area, while giving the whole vertical axis for "free" therefore not stifling development like other taxes such as the property tax. The incentive pressure of replacing the property tax with LVT is for humans to expand upward in the air, and not outwards in urban sprawl. It increases the supply of housing by ending passive investment in favor of encouraging active investment/value generation. It's called the perfect tax by economists.
As opposed to the carbon fee, or literally any other taxes, the LVT doesn't reduce the taxed; land isn't going anywhere. And neither is land use, the foundation for everything. It's the perfect tax to fund a UBI.
I woke and boke today, I have a problem, but hopefully I managed to convey why these concepts need to be fitted together for UBI to be a part of a coherent solution overall, and not a solution that exacerbates other problems.
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"Why give poor people money when they can just die?" -Rich people for the last century.
The math doesn't add up. Literally. A UBI of $1k per-month per-citizen would cost the federal government more than the sum total of all income tax collected every year.
Is it nice to dream of a post-scarcity society where all your basic needs and luxuries are provided? Yeah. It is.
It will happen if the alternative is worse. Tax will need to increase a lot to fund it, specifically aimed at the corporations that have automated most of the human jobs. The corporations may want to comply, since otherwise few people would have the money to buy their products. 'consumer' becomes a job, and the job description is to just go and buy things with the money you're given.
In a situation in which enough jobs have become automated and not replaced by other jobs, the alternative is chaos. If that doesn't happen, then we don't need UBI. If AI progress is fast enough, we might not have enough of a transition period to need UBI.
Right. What you describe is a post-scarcity society. One in which the citizens essentially do nothing but exist in a world where everything is automated.
This is something that may one day be achievable through innovation, but attempting to legislate it into reality before then is ... well ... in politics they might call that the tail wagging the dog.
A post-scarcity society is inevitable if technology continues to advance, but UBI still sounds like forcing the issue before it is feasible. You want this future ... I want this future, too.
In our current systems and level of social maturity absolutely not.
We will have to find ways to get there, but it’s important to design it across national borders, which makes it even harder.
UBI in terms the of basic human needs. Shelter, 3 meals, healthcare covered completely with access to more than just the bare minimum. I’m less sure on simply handing out cash. People need some sort of purpose so incentives for people to be rewarded for contributing something of value to other humans besides themselves is needed. People who don’t have purpose but have enough money to not work tend to end up on the batshit side of humanity (obsessing over anything that makes them feel needed in some capacity)
Terrible idea.
UBI will be designed to be enough only to pay your subscriptions (aka bills) while "you will own nothing and you will be happy," according to the Economic Forum. I think it's a way to trap consumers into a never ending cycle while the top benefits from the profits coming from your UBI.
If the singularity goes as planned
we will have universal advanced income, or no need for money at all
abundance!
I can't imagine the government getting UBI right. Flooding the money supply with unproductive capital will cause inflation many times worse then what we have seen in the past couple years with covid. The AI future is one full of pauperism. Most will become pets of the state who own nothing and will have fewer opportunities to act independently.
If people spend this money in local business, it could work.
If people keep buying from big corporation to save pennies, well, the rich will become richier with taxpayer money :(
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Edit: I'm counting creative stuff on internet as local busines ass well.
I don't believe in a ubi, but I do believe food should be a basic human right. This is because if no one needs to work to have money to buy nice things, then no one will work. But as it stands, we do not have the automation. So, someone needs to work on the farms and make new shit to buy. Also, in a world where everything is free , then nothing has value. Hence, there is no need to make art or music except for personal reasons.
>Hence, there is no need to make art or music except for personal reasons.
In this situation, people will still make a lot of art. Perhaps even more art than before, due to those who couldn't make a living from it suddenly having the time and resources to pursue a non-professional art career.
I thought about UBI a lot lately and honestly it just seems like too of a blunt tool to combat technological unemployment. Maybe once true AGI is here and it takes away virtually ALL the jobs, but before that I would like to see a combination of these policies (roll out as necessary per economy needs):
As I said, some versions of these are already commonplace in Europe. The US has the "advantage" of having close no to welfare currently (compared to other developed countries) so there is room to grow just implementing the basic EU policies to combat the upcoming wave of technological unemployment.
I feel that any lump sum of money that is going to be given to people will always make the market jack up the prices. We saw it happen with covid checks, people's landlord's demanded the entire thing. the "free market" has a cute way of deciding when things cost more.
I feel like deep structural changes need to happen for anything like UBI to make a difference. Do I think it'll happen? Most likely. it'll likely be a pittance of what is actually needed to survive and Politicians will make it sound like we are whining over free money when that gets brought up.
Necessary. Monetary economies will
Never going to happen. Labor rights are horrid in most parts of the world, and our current economic system glorifies that. Labor is also the one thing that the general populace can leverage against the ruling class, or in the case of automation; the owner class. There's no reason for UBI when wealth can be consolidated without economical downside. The spheres are being automated as well (intellectual, comp-sci, medicine, art...etc) are the well-paying, prestigious jobs in the world. Not everyone can be a soldier, plumber, or even grocery stocker. Most blue collar work takes a toll on the body, and entry-level, physical work pays pennies.
People will be left to struggle, fend for themselves, and we'll just have to see where that takes us.
UBI is needed for the transition period.
Eventually we won't need it, as we won't need money. We will just be able to ask for whatever we want and get it, almost immediately because the Ai will have made extra of everything humans could possible want.
If it's some very obscure request, it might take time for the Ai to make it, but generally whatever we want we can just have.
If that’s what they give us it’s only so we’ll buy more stuff to keep this shit show afloat and guarantee the inevitable escape of the elite once this planets exhausted.
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UBI could have positive results, but the drawbacks seriously make me question its viability now and in the future. In my mind, UBI will create or reinforce a two class system between rich and poor. Even if everyone were to get "free" money from the government, it wouldn't be enough to help people live sustainably or beyond the poverty line (welfare, similarly, tends to trap people in poverty and make them dependent on checks, even though it's designed to take people out of poverty).
UBI, I've heard, would trigger hyperinflation everywhere and cause the cost of living to skyrocket due to excessive money printing, negating the benefits of UBI (on top of a possible economic crash/recession that will only benefit the wealthy once again). 1K a month doesn't sound so good when rents balloon to more than 5K. UBI also eliminates innovation and progress, leading to stagnation, and is unfair to the few taxpayers who will still be working in jobs not replaced by AI, but will be forced to shoulder the burden for everyone in society.
UBI doesn't seem like it's very stable and may only semi-function as a temporary measure. The transition from now to full automation could exacerbate short them societal disruption and collapse, which could lead UBI down a messy, ugly path.
I think (at least in the US) a radical increase of affordable housing, guaranteed food (you'd be amazed how much food is wasted every year in the name of profit here, it's fucking ridiculous) and free health care (having thousands to weather a medical emergency is asinine) would be a strong base to build a UBI off of. The bootstrappers, lickers, and "that's communism and that's bad" people would disagree but for the purposes of this argument I think this is the best way forward if UBI were introduced. A guarantee for medical services and a full stomach, along with a fighting chance to have a roof over your head without having to hold three jobs to do it.
(I think we should have the above anyways as the system clearly isn't working as it stands)
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Least communist redditor
Well, first, extracting any value whatever from a kleptocratic State system isn't very likely, i.e. they'll never agree to pay people a UBI.
Second, if they did, it would lose its value because the payment, made in unearned fiat currency, has zero comparative value to staples of human sustenance. Only a fool would keep on working to earn that same currency as could be acquired without work. The AI system wouldn't be able to sustain itself on currency that has no value proposition, so it would decouple itself and its products from the UBI currency too.
Essentially, even if computers could provide all of our needs for life, UBI would make that task not mutually beneficial by removing our need to maintain their requirements. No human could benefit from working to take payment in a UBI currency either, because there would be no products to exchange it for.
Currently, currency can be thought of as representing some labor, but more accurately as a store of value related to labor because some forms of labor are more lucrative than others. With UBI, that would no longer be the case. The UBI currency represents nothing in particular, and has no method by which to preserve its own value over time.
UBI has failed over and over again. Google it.
Yeah the issue isn't UBI though, it's the economy that requires human labor. The whole point is that UBI gets implemented at an equivalent rate at which labor is eliminated from the economy.
That’s short term thinking. You are overlooking entrepreneurship and potential for exponential income/wealth growth. For example, the guy flipping burgers, promoted to manager, becomes Francisee, ends up owning 50 stores. With UBI, he would be stuck at pay rate of flipping burgers when replaced by robot with no chance for upward mobility.
UBI isn’t the answer. Society adapts. We transitioned from agrarian to services industry without any radical UBI type policies. UBI eliminates incentives to improve and innovate, that is why it has always failed in every country tried, and will continue to fail.
Think more creatively than the limited cudgel of UBI.
Ironic you would call my idea short term. There will be no need for a manager, burger flipper, customer service, or any humans at all for a burger joint in a decade or two. What will the countless people put out of work do? With no skills or capability to advance to the highest levels of work? With extremely limited opportunities remaining? All labor will be automated in time, then what will you do?
So then go full Star Trek where there is no income because everything you want is free. UBI is short-term thinking as it literally says, I’ll replace your current income from a productive job helping society, to a non-productive role in society where I just give you money.
That overlooks the deep societal and human benefits of self worth and purpose and productivity that comes from all ‘jobs’.
UBI is a wreak for monetery systems. Venezuella tried hard. Places like OMAN or SaudiArabi pay oil money to some parts of the native population. The effects of that can be reasearched in those countires.
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More efficient social servivces is better in general without any danger of pushing inflation up.
UBI could discourage work and innovation: Some people may argue that UBI could reduce the incentive for individuals to work, since they would receive a regular income regardless of whether they are employed.
UBI could be difficult to implement and finance: Implementing UBI at a national or global level could be challenging, as it would require significant changes to existing systems and a large amount of funding.
UBI may not be the most effective way to address poverty: Some people may argue that other policies, such as targeted assistance programs or job training initiatives, could be more effective at reducing poverty and promoting economic security.
UBI could lead to inflation: If the amount of money distributed through UBI is not properly calibrated, it could lead to higher prices and inflation.
UBI could create disincentives for education and skill development: Some people may argue that UBI could reduce the incentive for individuals to invest in education or training, since they would receive a regular income regardless of their level of education or skills.
UBI could create disincentives for charitable giving: Some people may argue that UBI could reduce the incentive for individuals to donate to charitable causes, since they would receive a regular income regardless of their charitable contributions.
UBI could create resentment among certain groups: Some people may argue that UBI could create resentment among those who are working and paying taxes, since they would be required to subsidize the incomes of those who are not working.
UBI could create dependency: Some people may argue that UBI could create dependency among recipients, leading them to rely on the government for financial support rather than seeking employment or entrepreneurial opportunities.
UBI could lead to a reduction in social services: Some people may argue that implementing UBI could lead to a reduction in other social services, such as healthcare and education, as resources are redirected towards funding the basic income program.
UBI could be seen as unfair: Some people may argue that UBI is unfair, since it would provide the same level of support to those who are able-bodied and able to work as it would to those who are unable to work due to disability or other circumstances.
Poorness is an engineered state, lack of access to money is how we kill the (perceived) less-desirable parts of society.
Animals require over 10x plant food to make the name number of calories. (yet most people largely eat meat)
Food abundance has been real for a long time (most of the earths land surface is already farms), contraction of central credit rates (the main purpose of central banks) is an artificial colar meant to prevent growth and keep the masses in check.
Germany removed such limits that promptly managed to take over ALL of Europe, (similar story in japan) only the combined slave masses of the rest of the world (and some german a bomb tech) managed to (sadly) stop them.
Unscrupulous string-pullers want to drag out and enjoy the unfolding of technology for as long as possible (look at how many golf coarses there are in your local city on google maps).
UBI would just force them to rely on manufactured bacteria / viruses and poisonous food additives (salt, oil, sugar etc) even more that they currently do.
Everything should already be free, UBI is entirely missing the point. Money is a reflection of power and exploitation, as usual in any of the infestation related bottlenecks the only real answer is to 'spread to another area', Hopefully cheap reusable rockets will help with that.
Cheers.
Yes, I agree that UBI is not a perfect solution. I will say that there doesn’t seem to be a batter “bandaid” for all the pain and suffering induced by our capitalist system.
Our situation is bad, so we need a compromise solution - thus, UBI.
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SgathTriallair t1_j26m27a wrote
It's necessary but it's going to be an uphill struggle.