4 ms·

Isn't the whole point of UBI is to smooth out and provide a safety net for those displaced by advancing technology?

visarga 10y ago
But in order to happen, it requires the cooperation of the state and companies. In the past, people had work. Each person was inextricably linked to his/her work power. In order for companies to function, they simply had to pay people to work, there was no other way around it. But after automation, most people will have nothing to offer any more. So people lose their self reliance ability and become dependent upon the state, at the mercy of political and economic games. A horror scenario I imagine is if the state does give UBI, but it is too small. It would feel like communism in the Eastern Europe where everyone had a "job" (mostly posing to work) and everyone got a salary, but it wasn't much. The joke going around was "We pretend to work, they pretend to pay us!" What can people do if the UBI is too small? Start a revolution? I'd bet on self-reliance as a much more stable solution. Instead of collecting tax in a big pot and then doling UBI to everyone, self reliance splits the single point of failure, and allows more experimentation and ingenuity at grassroot level.
- grey-area 10y ago
  In the past, people had work.... But after automation, most people will have nothing to offer any more. The same arguments were used at the advent of the industrial revolution. There will still be work after robotics, just not the same work.
  - dagss 10y ago
    How do you know? You are just making an assertion. It is not a law of nature. If you will forgive some hyperbole: After the industrial revolution, you no longer needed peoples' hands, just their brains. Now we will no longer need peoples' brains. Automation is a process that proceeds step by step, not a repeating pattern. Hopefully there is still something left that means there will still be a need for a large number of humans. But I think it is arrogant to just assert that. For every part of what humans can deliver that you replace there is less left where humans are needed.
    - lucozade 10y ago
      > How do you know? We don't know. But it has been true for every technology change since the discovery of agriculture so it is a high probability assertion. It might be different next time, of course, but the implication is that humanity won't create knew things to do as it has always done in the past. I don't see any evidence of a diminution of creativity but maybe you do.
      - leurfete 10y ago
        In the industrial revolution we mostly automated blunt physical labor. In the AI revolution we will automate intellectual labor. Robots are also becoming more dexterous. I don't think history can guide us here. Objectively valuable human endeavors could shrink to nothing, though we will probably at least buy ourselves time with genetic tampering and brain prostheses. Perhaps humanity's salvation will come from selling hand-crafted goods? Maybe the AIs will keep us around like pets (see The Culture novels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_Banks#The_Culture_novels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_Banks#The_Culture_novels)? No sense in not charging ahead though. The potential upside is too awesome to leave on the table. We face existential risk regardless.
        lucozade 10y ago
        > I don't think history can guide us here Of course it can. What has been consistent over centuries is that, as we've automated physical and intellectual labour, we've replaced it with other forms of physical and intellectual labour. Not in equal amounts, sure, but we've adapted. It's why we have, on average, more people in education for longer than historically, for example. I agree it's fun to extrapolate this to some form of asymptotic future but just because we can envisage future X doesn't mean it will occur (William Gibson novels aside, of course).

But in order to happen, it requires the cooperation of the state and companies. In the past, people had work. Each person was inextricably linked to his/her work power. In order for companies to function, they simply had to pay people to work, there was no other way around it. But after automation, most people will have nothing to offer any more. So people lose their self reliance ability and become dependent upon the state, at the mercy of political and economic games. A horror scenario I imagine is if the state does give UBI, but it is too small. It would feel like communism in the Eastern Europe where everyone had a "job" (mostly posing to work) and everyone got a salary, but it wasn't much. The joke going around was "We pretend to work, they pretend to pay us!" What can people do if the UBI is too small? Start a revolution? I'd bet on self-reliance as a much more stable solution. Instead of collecting tax in a big pot and then doling UBI to everyone, self reliance splits the single point of failure, and allows more experimentation and ingenuity at grassroot level.

grey-area 10y ago
In the past, people had work.... But after automation, most people will have nothing to offer any more. The same arguments were used at the advent of the industrial revolution. There will still be work after robotics, just not the same work.
- dagss 10y ago
  How do you know? You are just making an assertion. It is not a law of nature. If you will forgive some hyperbole: After the industrial revolution, you no longer needed peoples' hands, just their brains. Now we will no longer need peoples' brains. Automation is a process that proceeds step by step, not a repeating pattern. Hopefully there is still something left that means there will still be a need for a large number of humans. But I think it is arrogant to just assert that. For every part of what humans can deliver that you replace there is less left where humans are needed.
  - lucozade 10y ago
    > How do you know? We don't know. But it has been true for every technology change since the discovery of agriculture so it is a high probability assertion. It might be different next time, of course, but the implication is that humanity won't create knew things to do as it has always done in the past. I don't see any evidence of a diminution of creativity but maybe you do.
    - leurfete 10y ago
      In the industrial revolution we mostly automated blunt physical labor. In the AI revolution we will automate intellectual labor. Robots are also becoming more dexterous. I don't think history can guide us here. Objectively valuable human endeavors could shrink to nothing, though we will probably at least buy ourselves time with genetic tampering and brain prostheses. Perhaps humanity's salvation will come from selling hand-crafted goods? Maybe the AIs will keep us around like pets (see The Culture novels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_Banks#The_Culture_novels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_Banks#The_Culture_novels)? No sense in not charging ahead though. The potential upside is too awesome to leave on the table. We face existential risk regardless.
      - lucozade 10y ago
        > I don't think history can guide us here Of course it can. What has been consistent over centuries is that, as we've automated physical and intellectual labour, we've replaced it with other forms of physical and intellectual labour. Not in equal amounts, sure, but we've adapted. It's why we have, on average, more people in education for longer than historically, for example. I agree it's fun to extrapolate this to some form of asymptotic future but just because we can envisage future X doesn't mean it will occur (William Gibson novels aside, of course).