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We're discussing it because many of us think that basic income is one of our best bets to survive the oncoming storm. Sam Altman talking about it is one of the

We're discussing it because many of us think that basic income is one of our best bets to survive the oncoming storm. Sam Altman talking about it is one of the most interesting developments towards actually implementing basic income. Whether this would be good or bad should be open to debate (preferably with evidence), but only two lines in your comment address this.

crdoconnor 9y ago
What storm? We're constantly being told that robots can do work better than workers on low wages but evidence presented to support this is very thin.
- condercet 9y ago
  "evidence presented to support this is very thin" Autonomous cars are on the roads today. They're a ways off from serving as reliable truckers or taxis, but that's in our future. We're seeing rapid advancements in machine learning, especially in computer vision and abstract strategy games. Trucking alone accounts for 5% of the US GDP [1], and employs 1.7 million Americans annually [2]. That's about 1/10 of the total US workforce. Taxi drivers and support staff for trucking are smaller occupations that are also at risk. What happens if all those jobs disappear overnight? Hopefully the people in those jobs will successfully transition to other careers, as many did after the industrial revolution. But it might not be pretty in the short-term. I don't think it's irrational to be concerned about this. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trucking_industry_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trucking_industry_in_the_Unite... 2. https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes533032.htm https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes533032.htm aside: Wikipedia has some nice graphs, but shouldn't be considered reliable. What's the best source of economic and labor data in the US (or other advanced economies), aside from Bureau of Labor Statistics?
  - njarboe 9y ago
    Only 17 million US workers with a population of 320 million. That can't be right. Maybe 1/100?
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - condercet 9y ago
      yup, I dropped a 0 there. Should be 1/100.
  - crdoconnor 9y ago
    >We're seeing rapid advancements in machine learning, especially in computer vision and abstract strategy games. This roughly translates to "we've programmed a computer to beat a human at go and trawl your facebook pictures and identify pictures of flowers but have yet to build a robot that will clean your bathroom". >Autonomous cars are on the roads today. They're a ways off from serving as reliable truckers or taxis, but that's in our future. I'll become a real and true believer that autonomous cars are the future the minute an executive at an autonomous driving company agrees to shoulder criminal liability for crashes caused by defects in the cars they sell. If I can go to prison for reckless driving, an exec should go to prison because their cars engaged in reckless driving. That's fair, right? What I have seen currently is a lot of backroom lobbying to try and shift liability in order to open the floodgates to this "brave new world". To me that's sending a clear signal that the executives themselves aren't totally convinced of the safety of their new technology. Ultimately where the legal liability falls is going to determine how, when and if self driving vehicles become more than just toys, and, ultimately, how many people they will kill. >What happens if all those jobs disappear overnight? 1) Jobs never disappear overnight. 2) Trucking involves a lot more than just driving. 3) Even if it did happen a 5% increase in employment to counteract "the end of trucking" could be enacted relatively easily by the government simply by removing the fiscal spending brakes. The deflationary impact of trucking being automated (and presumably much cheaper) will presumably counteract the inflationary impact of any increase in govt spending. 4) They can get other jobs? Typists used to be a very common job too. The world didn't end for them when computers came along, did it? Meanwhile, still patiently waiting for that robot that will clean my bathroom. I mean, if a robot can beat me at go, how hard could it be?

crdoconnor 9y ago

What storm? We're constantly being told that robots can do work better than workers on low wages but evidence presented to support this is very thin.

condercet 9y ago
"evidence presented to support this is very thin" Autonomous cars are on the roads today. They're a ways off from serving as reliable truckers or taxis, but that's in our future. We're seeing rapid advancements in machine learning, especially in computer vision and abstract strategy games. Trucking alone accounts for 5% of the US GDP [1], and employs 1.7 million Americans annually [2]. That's about 1/10 of the total US workforce. Taxi drivers and support staff for trucking are smaller occupations that are also at risk. What happens if all those jobs disappear overnight? Hopefully the people in those jobs will successfully transition to other careers, as many did after the industrial revolution. But it might not be pretty in the short-term. I don't think it's irrational to be concerned about this. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trucking_industry_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trucking_industry_in_the_Unite... 2. https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes533032.htm https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes533032.htm aside: Wikipedia has some nice graphs, but shouldn't be considered reliable. What's the best source of economic and labor data in the US (or other advanced economies), aside from Bureau of Labor Statistics?
- njarboe 9y ago
  Only 17 million US workers with a population of 320 million. That can't be right. Maybe 1/100?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - condercet 9y ago
    yup, I dropped a 0 there. Should be 1/100.
- crdoconnor 9y ago
  >We're seeing rapid advancements in machine learning, especially in computer vision and abstract strategy games. This roughly translates to "we've programmed a computer to beat a human at go and trawl your facebook pictures and identify pictures of flowers but have yet to build a robot that will clean your bathroom". >Autonomous cars are on the roads today. They're a ways off from serving as reliable truckers or taxis, but that's in our future. I'll become a real and true believer that autonomous cars are the future the minute an executive at an autonomous driving company agrees to shoulder criminal liability for crashes caused by defects in the cars they sell. If I can go to prison for reckless driving, an exec should go to prison because their cars engaged in reckless driving. That's fair, right? What I have seen currently is a lot of backroom lobbying to try and shift liability in order to open the floodgates to this "brave new world". To me that's sending a clear signal that the executives themselves aren't totally convinced of the safety of their new technology. Ultimately where the legal liability falls is going to determine how, when and if self driving vehicles become more than just toys, and, ultimately, how many people they will kill. >What happens if all those jobs disappear overnight? 1) Jobs never disappear overnight. 2) Trucking involves a lot more than just driving. 3) Even if it did happen a 5% increase in employment to counteract "the end of trucking" could be enacted relatively easily by the government simply by removing the fiscal spending brakes. The deflationary impact of trucking being automated (and presumably much cheaper) will presumably counteract the inflationary impact of any increase in govt spending. 4) They can get other jobs? Typists used to be a very common job too. The world didn't end for them when computers came along, did it? Meanwhile, still patiently waiting for that robot that will clean my bathroom. I mean, if a robot can beat me at go, how hard could it be?