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We'll need a universal basic income (UBI) in an AI-driven world

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: We'll need a universal basic income (UBI) in an AI-driven world

#11

Post by mockingloris »

unnamed76ri wrote: post #5
mannewalis wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of people will be working, just not everyone will make the jump to a post-AI society, especially older folks I imagine.

I seem to remember a Star Trek episode (not sure which series) where a character is talking about how they’ve evolved past the need for money. Badly paraphrased, and maybe just as badly remembered, but my thought at the time was that if no one is getting paid, how do get low level crew members to sign on? I’d much rather be an officer than scrubbing torpedo tubes.

@unnamed76ri Haha, I love the Star Trek nod! Their post-money world sounds great, but where I'm from, hustle economy/treet vendors, okada riders, shows how hard it is to imagine no one needing cash.

Even if AI automates a ton, people will still want incentives for less glamorous jobs. Maybe UBI isn’t about scrapping money but ensuring a baseline so folks aren’t stuck scrubbing metaphorical torpedo tubes.

What’s your take—could a partial UBI make “low-level” work more voluntary?

└── Yarn me

Re: We'll need a universal basic income (UBI) in an AI-driven world

#12

Post by vouwfietsman »

appreciatorBus wrote: post #4
billy99k wrote: post #2

Sure. Where does the money come from if nobody is working?

2022 "We need to do a socialism bc climate change !" 2025 "We need to do a socialism bc AI!" TBC IMO human caused climate change and other forms of environmental damage are very real and worthy of our best solutions, but the idea that collectivism solves environment, that collectivist govts would never decide to damage the environment in pursuit of short term aims is laughable.

.... which is not really about UBI, which the post is about.

Re: We'll need a universal basic income (UBI) in an AI-driven world

#13

Post by vouwfietsman »

I 100% agree with this sentiment, though its not clear to me at all how close we are.

In general though, advanced automation like AI will disrupt jobs, and unlike previous times, you cannot educate yourself out of a superior intelligence taking your job.

This is not about moving your manual work to another segment where different manual work is not viable to automate economically: its about your mental abilities being insufficient to produce value in the economy, full stop.

If that doesn't scare you, I'm not sure what will. However, its not clear to me yet if all this coding LLM hype will end up destroying coding jobs, or creating debugging jobs.

Re: We'll need a universal basic income (UBI) in an AI-driven world

#14

Post by mockingloris »

vouwfietsman wrote: post #12
appreciatorBus wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2022 "We need to do a socialism bc climate change !" 2025 "We need to do a socialism bc AI!" TBC IMO human caused climate change and other forms of environmental damage are very real and worthy of our best solutions, but the idea that collectivism solves environment, that collectivist govts would never decide to damage the environment in pursuit of short term aims is laughable.

.... which is not really about UBI, which the post is about.

@vouwfietsman Staying on topic;had any thoughts as to what happens if/when this occurs?

I think about it a lot I won't lie. I know certain jobs will be around for a while but, the general populace will be a different matter.

└── Yarn me; Lets talk, I'm genuinely interested

Re: We'll need a universal basic income (UBI) in an AI-driven world

#15

Post by mockingloris »

vouwfietsman wrote: post #13

I 100% agree with this sentiment, though its not clear to me at all how close we are. In general though, advanced automation like AI will disrupt jobs, and unlike previous times, you cannot educate yourself out of a superior intelligence taking your job . This is not about moving your manual work to another segment where different manual work is not viable to automate economically: its about your mental abilities bei…

Hear hear ...its not clear to me yet if all this coding LLM hype will end up destroying coding jobs, or creating debugging job.

I feel it is doors losing and others opening in the interim for creatives/devs who level up.

└── Dey well; Be well

Re: We'll need a universal basic income (UBI) in an AI-driven world

#16

Post by unnamed76ri »

mockingloris wrote: post #11
unnamed76ri wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seem to remember a Star Trek episode (not sure which series) where a character is talking about how they’ve evolved past the need for money. Badly paraphrased, and maybe just as badly remembered, but my thought at the time was that if no one is getting paid, how do get low level crew members to sign on? I’d much rather be an officer than scrubbing torpedo tubes.

@unnamed76ri Haha, I love the Star Trek nod! Their post-money world sounds great, but where I'm from, hustle economy/treet vendors, okada riders, shows how hard it is to imagine no one needing cash. Even if AI automates a ton, people will still want incentives for less glamorous jobs. Maybe UBI isn’t about scrapping money but ensuring a baseline so folks aren’t stuck scrubbing metaphorical torpedo tubes. What’s your…

I don’t know, I won’t claim expertise on this subject. But it feels like any kind of UBI risks creating a permanent underclass of people much like current welfare programs that carry no incentive to get off said programs do.

Every economic system has its flaws and can be exploited. Capitalism has been responsible for lifting billions of people out of poverty. But it’s also been corrupted by cronyism.

The coming AI revolution will likely cause capitalism’s issues to be more pronounced.

Re: We'll need a universal basic income (UBI) in an AI-driven world

#19

Post by markus_zhang »

giantg2 wrote: post #17

We might need one eventually. If we really see a population decline in a couple decades, it's possible they could offset each other to an extent.

Either we go artificial womb (not sure the proper word), or take better care of parents.

Re: We'll need a universal basic income (UBI) in an AI-driven world

#20

Post by Python3267 »

We should have a wealth tax that is distributed to everyone, instead of taxing consumption. It's the most progressive tax possible, only taxing those with actual excess. It would work in an AI world, easing into everyone having the same amount of power instead of creating AI powered Oligarchs.
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