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Then we should start planning now by stopping the notion that being a good, moral person includes earning a wage. There are big political issues with achieving

Then we should start planning now by stopping the notion that being a good, moral person includes earning a wage. There are big political issues with achieving UBI. One of them is reversing that notion. I grew up in a poor family, one time, when my Mum was laid off I heard her lament that she didn't want to take unemployment because she wasn't one of 'those scroungers.' I see unemployment from AI, if it happens, to be a slow burn. If we don't shift our attitudes towards it then we're going to be entering a new era of "Welfare queens" but without any meaningful work for people to actually do.

Applejinx 3y ago
That's not that big a worry. People strive and aspire no matter what their conditions. We've got loads of wildly unsatisfied billionaires. There's no meaningful difference between them and 'welfare queens' at the most basic level. In the absence of want, people will invent want. Supply all the conditions of a totally unexamined life and people will look to status, or acquisition, as if it is life. People will manufacture what they call meaning within the context of their frame of reference.
- PodgieTar 3y ago
  Sure, but that's not quite what I mean. I'm not necessarily worried about a life without meaning, or want. Hell, in the absolutely best case AI enables that utopian world of allowing people to focus on their passions and achieve their best selves. But that's not the world we currently live in. I'm worried the job losses will be slow, and that many people will suffer because we have our antiquated notions of the world. That we will let people starve, because it's their own fault for not working (in this new world, devoid of work.) And that those attitudes will persist because those at the top will be some of the last to be fully effected.
zooq_ai 3y ago
There are trillions of tasks / jobs that are still to be done. Even to prepare AI / Robots to do those jobs takes lots of additional human 'work'. I'll make an open bet. You'll need more humans and we will have more jobs in the next 10-20 years that we will not find enough people. Plus Covid stimulus already showed that it's easy for the Government to print money and give it to people. It's not unpopular at all when it comes to existential risk
- CrzyLngPwd 3y ago
  Every day is an existential risk for some of us. Why pay tax when the gov can print the money instead of taking it from me?
  - miloignis 3y ago
    Printing money is a tax on you, that's what inflation is - and you don't even get to grade things via tax brackets.
    - CrzyLngPwd 3y ago
      It's not really, though. We can be 74 zelenskys in debt, and no one really cares. We can always find more zelensky or manufacture more from thin air, it's really no problem for us.
      - mixedCase 3y ago
        > We can be 74 zelenskys in debt, and no one really cares Except for basic demand and supply. The more of those "zelenskys" you have around, the less they're worth.
        CrzyLngPwd 3y ago
        Military leverage. Deaths-per-dollar is functionally converted to zelenskys.
      - miloignis 3y ago
        People do care when inflation goes up! Everyone complains when food and gas and rent costs more. The issue with printing money isn't being 74 zelenskys in debt, it's having massive inflation. Venezuela can print as much money as it wants, but they're in hyperinflation and it's terrible.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
otikik 3y ago
We should abandon the notion of “wages” entirely
- CrzyLngPwd 3y ago
  We could arm wrestle for the produce you and I need but is in short supply. I dig holes for a living, so I am confident I will win against you.
  - idiotsecant 3y ago
    With a well managed planned agriculture and distribution system why should we fight over produce? There would be enough produce for us both. Our current system selects for how best to maximize profit from produce sales, not how best to serve the most people the most nutritious produce.
    - CrzyLngPwd 3y ago
      We shouldn't. I have ~45 acres of green grass, you have around 50 pregnant ewes, we should both do well and I love lamb rogan josh and seeing them all through spring/summer.
  - otikik 3y ago
    Go wrestle with a machine if you’re into that. “The produce” is not what is in short supply.
toddmorey 3y ago
How is UBI funded? Is it significant taxes on corporate entities? And will adopting UBI be super challenging for a consumer economy like the US that depends so much on discretionary spending?
- PodgieTar 3y ago
  I'm by no means an economist nor do I pretend I have the answers to the questions. But my initial view of UBI is to ensure that people can afford their basic necessities. I've heard plenty of ways to which UBI could be funded - including taxation against the robots and AIs that take on the labour that used to be done. Is that practical in the short term? Probably not, but the whole article is about thinking about and planning for these future scenarios. I don't know what the answer to UBI funding is, but that's sorta the problem in the first place. We haven't planned enough for that world.
- phkahler 3y ago
  How is UBI funded? Through taxes of course. And that means the tax rate will have to be something like the reciprocal of the velocity of money. But when people are handed the money for nothing, and then buy direct from a huge vertically integrated supplier it will have to be taxed 100 percent. The Laffer curve becomes relevant here. I've never seen even a simple algebraic model of how UBI can possibly work.
  - nappingbat 3y ago
    In my mind (and possibly in the real world?) it works like this: A company makes a 10% profit after paying huge labor costs, and we tax that profit to pay for our collective needs. The company all but eliminates labor costs with AI, and profits soar to 90%. We tax that profit to pay for our increased collective needs.
- Anticlockwise 3y ago
  Funding a ubi wouldn't be that hard if we only cared about the kinds of things that get cheaper with time. Right now our federal tax rate is enough to cover 10k/year/pp (though nothing else), but if actually taxed the wealthy as much as we tax the middle class (for example, if we had a higher capital gains tax on public share sales, reducing the amount earned by the class of people who produce no real value and just earn money from stock growth), we could bring in enough to give out 5k/year/pp pretty easily. If everything that matters in life were getting cheaper the way computers and food did over the last half century, 5k/year/pp would be a good start, and as we got richer we could afford more. But some sectors of the economy get more expensive with time, and those are what are killing us now and what prevents the UBI from being a good idea (before we fix them). Housing, Healthcare, education and childcare absorb more money every year and faster than the economy grows. Give people more money and those sectors just find ways to charge more. If we can't fix the way they do that, we get poorer in reality no matter how much more money we earn. I realize this isn't how a lot of folks view things. To see it through my lens, imagine for a moment how wealthy we'd be if housing cost less than it did fifty years ago. If healthcare did. If education did. That's the world Keynes imagined, where we could be working 15 hour weeks (probably actually 25 hour weeks, but still) and still feel rich.
Buttons840 3y ago
If AI unquestionably surpasses human intellect, then certainly any idea of a meritocracy goes right out the door. If a business owner claims they succeeded by being smart and working hard, well, any common AI works smarter, and manual laborers work harder.
tivert 3y ago
> Then we should start planning now by stopping the notion that being a good, moral person includes earning a wage. > There are big political issues with achieving UBI. One of them is reversing that notion. So, in other words, we're fucked. I don't think an economy where the majority people are economically unproductive and lack an ownership claim will be survivable for those people, and that seems like what UBI would be. I think the trajectory will be something like one of these: 1. We keep our current economic system and ideology, maybe tack on UBI, and the unemployed are eventually slowly (or quickly) escorted out of existence. At some point the people who still contribute to the economy will get tired of paying so much to support the unemployed, and will use their de-facto monopoly on economic power to stop. The method most compatible with our prevalent moral frameworks is suppressing reproduction of people supported by UBI. 2. Some kind of outright socialism/communism. The idea of individual ownership is abolished or severely curtailed, and all capital is managed by some centrally-planned authority a-la the Soviet Union. Basically, you have no option except live on UBI. There's still some chance of the unemployed being escorted out of existence, if the political authority can be hijacked by an authoritarian who wants to get rid of them. 3. There's some kind of luddite ban on "too much" automation, or an Amish-like control and suppression of technology based on its adverse cultural impacts.

Applejinx 3y ago

That's not that big a worry. People strive and aspire no matter what their conditions. We've got loads of wildly unsatisfied billionaires. There's no meaningful difference between them and 'welfare queens' at the most basic level. In the absence of want, people will invent want. Supply all the conditions of a totally unexamined life and people will look to status, or acquisition, as if it is life. People will manufacture what they call meaning within the context of their frame of reference.

PodgieTar 3y ago
Sure, but that's not quite what I mean. I'm not necessarily worried about a life without meaning, or want. Hell, in the absolutely best case AI enables that utopian world of allowing people to focus on their passions and achieve their best selves. But that's not the world we currently live in. I'm worried the job losses will be slow, and that many people will suffer because we have our antiquated notions of the world. That we will let people starve, because it's their own fault for not working (in this new world, devoid of work.) And that those attitudes will persist because those at the top will be some of the last to be fully effected.

zooq_ai 3y ago

There are trillions of tasks / jobs that are still to be done. Even to prepare AI / Robots to do those jobs takes lots of additional human 'work'. I'll make an open bet. You'll need more humans and we will have more jobs in the next 10-20 years that we will not find enough people. Plus Covid stimulus already showed that it's easy for the Government to print money and give it to people. It's not unpopular at all when it comes to existential risk

CrzyLngPwd 3y ago
Every day is an existential risk for some of us. Why pay tax when the gov can print the money instead of taking it from me?
- miloignis 3y ago
  Printing money is a tax on you, that's what inflation is - and you don't even get to grade things via tax brackets.
  - CrzyLngPwd 3y ago
    It's not really, though. We can be 74 zelenskys in debt, and no one really cares. We can always find more zelensky or manufacture more from thin air, it's really no problem for us.
    - mixedCase 3y ago
      > We can be 74 zelenskys in debt, and no one really cares Except for basic demand and supply. The more of those "zelenskys" you have around, the less they're worth.
      - CrzyLngPwd 3y ago
        Military leverage. Deaths-per-dollar is functionally converted to zelenskys.
    - miloignis 3y ago
      People do care when inflation goes up! Everyone complains when food and gas and rent costs more. The issue with printing money isn't being 74 zelenskys in debt, it's having massive inflation. Venezuela can print as much money as it wants, but they're in hyperinflation and it's terrible.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

otikik 3y ago

We should abandon the notion of “wages” entirely

CrzyLngPwd 3y ago
We could arm wrestle for the produce you and I need but is in short supply. I dig holes for a living, so I am confident I will win against you.
- idiotsecant 3y ago
  With a well managed planned agriculture and distribution system why should we fight over produce? There would be enough produce for us both. Our current system selects for how best to maximize profit from produce sales, not how best to serve the most people the most nutritious produce.
  - CrzyLngPwd 3y ago
    We shouldn't. I have ~45 acres of green grass, you have around 50 pregnant ewes, we should both do well and I love lamb rogan josh and seeing them all through spring/summer.
- otikik 3y ago
  Go wrestle with a machine if you’re into that. “The produce” is not what is in short supply.

toddmorey 3y ago

How is UBI funded? Is it significant taxes on corporate entities? And will adopting UBI be super challenging for a consumer economy like the US that depends so much on discretionary spending?

PodgieTar 3y ago
I'm by no means an economist nor do I pretend I have the answers to the questions. But my initial view of UBI is to ensure that people can afford their basic necessities. I've heard plenty of ways to which UBI could be funded - including taxation against the robots and AIs that take on the labour that used to be done. Is that practical in the short term? Probably not, but the whole article is about thinking about and planning for these future scenarios. I don't know what the answer to UBI funding is, but that's sorta the problem in the first place. We haven't planned enough for that world.
phkahler 3y ago
How is UBI funded? Through taxes of course. And that means the tax rate will have to be something like the reciprocal of the velocity of money. But when people are handed the money for nothing, and then buy direct from a huge vertically integrated supplier it will have to be taxed 100 percent. The Laffer curve becomes relevant here. I've never seen even a simple algebraic model of how UBI can possibly work.
- nappingbat 3y ago
  In my mind (and possibly in the real world?) it works like this: A company makes a 10% profit after paying huge labor costs, and we tax that profit to pay for our collective needs. The company all but eliminates labor costs with AI, and profits soar to 90%. We tax that profit to pay for our increased collective needs.
Anticlockwise 3y ago
Funding a ubi wouldn't be that hard if we only cared about the kinds of things that get cheaper with time. Right now our federal tax rate is enough to cover 10k/year/pp (though nothing else), but if actually taxed the wealthy as much as we tax the middle class (for example, if we had a higher capital gains tax on public share sales, reducing the amount earned by the class of people who produce no real value and just earn money from stock growth), we could bring in enough to give out 5k/year/pp pretty easily. If everything that matters in life were getting cheaper the way computers and food did over the last half century, 5k/year/pp would be a good start, and as we got richer we could afford more. But some sectors of the economy get more expensive with time, and those are what are killing us now and what prevents the UBI from being a good idea (before we fix them). Housing, Healthcare, education and childcare absorb more money every year and faster than the economy grows. Give people more money and those sectors just find ways to charge more. If we can't fix the way they do that, we get poorer in reality no matter how much more money we earn. I realize this isn't how a lot of folks view things. To see it through my lens, imagine for a moment how wealthy we'd be if housing cost less than it did fifty years ago. If healthcare did. If education did. That's the world Keynes imagined, where we could be working 15 hour weeks (probably actually 25 hour weeks, but still) and still feel rich.

Buttons840 3y ago

If AI unquestionably surpasses human intellect, then certainly any idea of a meritocracy goes right out the door. If a business owner claims they succeeded by being smart and working hard, well, any common AI works smarter, and manual laborers work harder.

tivert 3y ago

> Then we should start planning now by stopping the notion that being a good, moral person includes earning a wage. > There are big political issues with achieving UBI. One of them is reversing that notion. So, in other words, we're fucked. I don't think an economy where the majority people are economically unproductive and lack an ownership claim will be survivable for those people, and that seems like what UBI would be. I think the trajectory will be something like one of these: 1. We keep our current economic system and ideology, maybe tack on UBI, and the unemployed are eventually slowly (or quickly) escorted out of existence. At some point the people who still contribute to the economy will get tired of paying so much to support the unemployed, and will use their de-facto monopoly on economic power to stop. The method most compatible with our prevalent moral frameworks is suppressing reproduction of people supported by UBI. 2. Some kind of outright socialism/communism. The idea of individual ownership is abolished or severely curtailed, and all capital is managed by some centrally-planned authority a-la the Soviet Union. Basically, you have no option except live on UBI. There's still some chance of the unemployed being escorted out of existence, if the political authority can be hijacked by an authoritarian who wants to get rid of them. 3. There's some kind of luddite ban on "too much" automation, or an Amish-like control and suppression of technology based on its adverse cultural impacts.