Tag: ubi

AI taxation

if most countries will not be able to tax ultra-profitable AI companies to subsidize their workers, what options will they have? I foresee only one: Unless they wish to plunge their people into poverty, they will be forced to negotiate with whichever country supplies most of their AI software — China or the United States — to essentially become that country’s economic dependent, taking in welfare subsidies in exchange for letting the “parent” nation’s AI companies continue to profit from the dependent country’s users. Such economic arrangements would reshape today’s geopolitical alliances.

Pay for UBI with privatized highways

Better highways, more land for productive development plus a permanent fund sending checks to every citizen. A guaranteed basic income financed from public assets waiting to be monetized and put to work. You might even get the progressives’ vote. Have you ever made such a great deal?

proposes to auction off the highway system to pay for UBI. we need lots of ideas how UBI could happen, so this is a welcome contribution.

What are young men doing?

The average low-skilled, unemployed man plays video games an average of 12h. 22% of unemployed young men did not work the previous year either. These individuals are living with parents or relatives, and happiness surveys actually indicate that they’re quite content compared to their peers

large fractions of society are already doing what they would if UBI were here

Automation 2036

a nice summary if you have been living under a rock

My main assumptions for the next 20 years are:

  • Automation will make more and more people unemployable
  • No dystopia: Democracies will continue to function “reasonably”
  • Some form of Universal Basic Income (UBI) will become common
  • Minimum wage will probably disappear: Unions will fight a rear-guard action but in a sense, once you have UBI, much of the justification for minimum wage goes away. And even if “officially” it stays, people will simply become independent and do “consulting jobs” which are exempt from unions
  • Capitalism will be alive and well: While UBI sounds a bit like socialism, and taxes will probably be higher, capitalism as we know it will continue.
  • Automation will accelerate: Once UBI exists, why would somebody do unpleasant work? Well, if it pays very well, or it is challenging. So there will be a bigger push to automate things which are currently done by people on very low wage.

Also, once many / most people are on UBI, I think luddites / unions / special interest groups will find it harder to block further automation: People on UBI will look unkindly on a group suggesting that a service / product should stay expensive just so that group will keep their jobs. Will inequality grow? Depends on how you look at it: Income inequality will probably continue rising (even though taxes will be higher to finance UBI). But how about Quality-of-Life inequality? That’s a lot harder to measure. So what will everybody do?

  • There will be cheap, good education
  • People will have more fun
  • Everybody will be an artist
  • Religions / alternative / new-age stuff
  • Helping others

Cyborgization after UBI

Instead of pursuing a strategy of increased externalisation, perhaps we could pursue increased integration. In other words, perhaps we could merge ourselves (our bodies; our minds) with technology. Perhaps we could become cyborgs. That way, the systems that I lamented towards the end of the previous section would no longer threaten to sever the link between what we do and what can be achieved. They would be integrated into who we are. We could have the best of both worlds: the benefits of the enhanced capacities of technology along with meaningful participation in the outcomes the technology facilitates

Teaching AI after UBI

3 ways forward once everyone has UBI and is out of a job: Teaching AGIs everything we’ve already learned about the world. This is a herculean task and it has the potential to keep many of us busy doing it for many decades into the future. Collaborating with AGIs to learn things we don’t already know about the world. AGIs can learn how to do things without a formal knowledge of how something works. This is where engineers, scientists, and philosophers live and work. Applying the understanding and capabilities of AGI to do things in the real world better and more easily than ever before. Most of us will be working in this space.

Robot Boost

Researchers analyzed the economic impact of industrial robots, using a panel of industries in 17 countries from 1993-2007. Industrial robots increased both labor productivity and value added. The use of robots raised countries’ growth rates by 0.37%. Robots increased both wages and total factor productivity. While robots had no significant effect on total hours worked, there is some evidence that they reduced the hours of both low-skilled and middle-skilled workers.

Peak code?

The simulation suggests that “technological progress can be immiserating” and that even talented software programmers may face tough times in an ever more automated economy. The reason lies in the durability and reusability of software. Code is not used up; it accumulates. As the cost of deploying software for productive work (ie, the cost of automation) goes down, demand for new code spikes, bringing lots of new programmers into the labor market. The generous compensation provided to the programmers leads at first to higher savings and capital formation, fueling the boom. But “over time,” the model reveals, “as the stock of legacy code grows, the demand for new code, and thus for high-tech workers, falls.”