3 ms·
If full AGI dreams are achieved and 80% of jobs disappear, leading to mass unemployment, then we need to do something to support the huge numbers of people that
by varenc 10mo ago
If full AGI dreams are achieved and 80% of jobs disappear, leading to mass unemployment, then we need to do something to support the huge numbers of people that no longer have any income. Taxes to support a UBI program seem one solution. Or maybe the labor market can shift to find opportunities for humans that AI can't replace and we'd avoid the mass unemployment.
But feels like we're a long way from that right now.
- bofadeez 10mo agoWe don't need taxes to pay a UBI. If "every country" is in debt, who owns the debt exactly? ... (it's not real debt)
- WillAdams 10mo agoThe problem with socialism, is eventually, one runs out of other people's money. For an example of what unlimited borrowing and money printing results in, look up Germany in 1921--1923
- lovich 10mo agoI’m pretty sure the poster you’re replying to is hinting at MMT and for your own statement, Money is a nations currency. It’s actually the people of that nations property and you only get a lease on it. If you disagree then try to do something like ceding the land that you “own” to another nations and see how that goes
- harimau777 10mo agoSure, but then we at least don't have the ultra wealthy coming up with ways to make everyone elses lives worse. If we took Elon Musk's money away and simply burnt it, that would still be a net win for society as a whole.
- smallmancontrov 10mo agoWe're 45 years into the trickle-down experiment and we can now tell if what trickled down was gold or piss. (It was piss.)
- WillAdams 10mo agoYeah, when folks say they want to go back to the '50s, I immediately ask, "Bring back the 90% tax bracket? Yes, please."
- BurningFrog 10mo agoWe have "disappeared" ~97% of jobs since the Industrial Revolution started, and no increased unemployment has materialized. Until you understand how something that counter intuitive happened, you should not speculate on how AI replacing current jobs will play out!
- the-mitr 10mo agoCan you give a source for the 97% claim?
- BurningFrog 10mo agoI have two ways to think of it, and both give similar numbers. A: 250 years ago, 98% worked in farming. Today it's 2% (who produce more food!). Assume that the other 2% are at least twice as productive, and you get that 3% of the population now produces as much as 100% back then. B: It's hard to directly estimate how much GDP per person has increased in 250 years. But the typical number economists get when trying is that it's 30x as big. Which means 3.3% of today's workforce produces as much (per person) as the whole workforce did back then. Both A and B can be critiqued, but the precise numbers don't really matter for the argument.
- harimau777 10mo agoI suspect that the reason might be that the Industrial Revolution happened over 200 years ago. That provides a lot of time for 97% of jobs to progressively disappear without disrupting society too much (except for all the revolutions and world wars). That would be quite different than if AI caused any significant percentage of jobs to disappear in a much shorter period of time.
- smallmancontrov 10mo agoIf you're so sure that new jobs will appear (and -- critical omission -- that they will be any good), surely you would be willing to ask the capital interests for whom these arguments are self-serving to put money where their mouth is and backstop a guarantee? No? Hmmmmmm.
- 10mo ago