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Free money for everyone?! Read more about Universal Basic Income
Imagine if the government started paying you a fixed salary just for being its citizen. As far-fetching as this sounds, the prospect of automation putting large numbers of workers out of jobs in the near future is spurring governments around the world to actually start testing this concept out. It's name: Universal Basic Income.
This post is inspired by @ronni's comment on my earlier post on global aging.
_https://steemit.com/life/@sizzlingmonkeys/how-will-global-aging-affect-you_
I've been meaning to write this post for a few days now. @ronni's comment on how machine learning, AI, and automation creates an uncertain future piqued my interest so I did a little research to see how people might address the problem of lost jobs.
The concept of UBI is simple - the government pays every citizen enough money to his or her cover basic needs. UBI is touted as a possible solution to the problem of massive worker displacement in an increasingly automated and artificial-intelligenced world.
The rational behind UBI is that it allows everyone to live a life free from financial worry, thus stabilizing society and potentially helping unleash a tsunami of creativity and innovation when people are able to work not just for food and shelter, but to fulfill their life aspirations.
Both Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk are big supporters. Elon Musk predicts that automation will make "almost everything very cheap" so that it will be less costly than one might think to implement UBI.
Universal Basic Income is not a new concept - Martin Luther King, Jr. supported UBI. However, UBI is recently seeing renewed interest, spurred on by the financial crisis of 2008 and the growth of human-displacing technologies.
UBI is not just a utopian concept tossed around in debates around the world. There have been several small-scale pilots of UBI around the world spanning across several continents. One study carried out in 2008 in Namibia found that the proportion of malnourished children dropped from 42% to 10% after an UBI pilot program was launched in the village of Otjivero-Omitara.
I think Universal Basic Income is a fascinating concept. Mind you, the amount of money we are talking about here is not going to be enough to live an extravagant lifestyle, but it sounds like a good idea to me to guarantee everyone a minimum lifestyle, so no-one needs to be homeless and no-one needs to go hungry.
I am curious whether UBI's effect on human productivity would lean more towards reducing people's drive and making us all more lazy, or lean more towards what Mark Zuckerberg believes, that is, providing the financial "cushion" for people to take more risks and try more new things.
Even if most of us end up becoming more lazy, maybe the creativity unleashed from the few who use UBI as a springboard to try new things is enough to justify UBI.
In any case, Universal Basic Income is certainly a concept that deserves a closer look!
Resteem, upvote, or leave a comment if you liked this article!
Images from:
https://www.pexels.com
https://futurism.com/images/universal-basic-income-answer-automation/
Resources:
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/false-promise-universal-basic-income-andy-stern-ruger-bregman
https://futurism.com/images/universal-basic-income-answer-automation/
Replies (13)
It is a great post. Thanks for sharing information. Keep it up.
Yeah I think this UBI concept will definitely work out in some countries, I've recently read something about it. Somewhere they want to create a new city, especially designed to test this concept, can't remember what it was called though.
Well written post overall, upvoted and resteemed this :D
Glad my comment inspired you sizzlingmonkeys!
UBI is a very interesting concept and something I believe is inevitable in some form in the future.
Most about UBI is good, but there are, however, a dark side to it as well.
Let me dive right into it!
Since the 70's we have been seeing an ever increasing gap between rich and poor. Even though society as a whole is becoming more wealthy the average Joe has actually not become more wealthy since the 70's! You can look those stats up on the internet, but it is well covered by Martin Ford's book "The rise of the robots" as well. The poor and the middle class are not sharing the increased societal wealth while the rich are getting even more wealthy.
This is a HUGE problem that has been ignored for way too long.
The wealth gap will, if we continue with our current structure, continue to widen because of robots, AI and machine learning.
As you mentioned: The robots will take our jobs and create cheaper products which is all good. The problem is that the value generated will flow to the owners of those robots and that number of people (the elite) is small.
You can clearly see the pattern if you compare the auto industry with today's Silicon Valley industry. The wealth generated in Silicon Valley is much bigger than the auto industry of yesterday (when you take inflation into account), but the employment in Silicon Valley is only a fraction of the auto employment.
So the increased wealth in society will only go to the few people who actually own the robots. Worst case scenario is a situation where few will gorge themselves while the rest of the population will starve. An uprising will not even be possible at this point in time because the rich will be protected by surveillance and robot soldiers/technology.
This is where UBI comes into the equation. UBI will guarantee everyone a certain income which is of course on paper a good thing. The problem is that this model is mainly in the interest of the elite.
Reason: In the situation where the elite (owners of the AI) sits on all wealth how are they able to continue generating wealth when the rest of the population does not have any money left? Who will they sell to? UBI will channel some of money back to the poor so the rich can take it back again by selling life sustaining products.
This is a rather dark picture I know.
I personally like Bill Gate's suggestion better. He suggests a future where robots/AI will be taxed in the same way as human labor. That way we will all share the increased wealth instead of only a handful.
Thank you for reading through!
By the way, I am currently writing on a post I hope you will find time to read when published :)
ronni
Interesting idea. Maybe part of it will be a reality in future. Who knows.
As always, thanks for the thoughtful discussion, ronni! I'd be interested in learning more about the various ways that people are exploring to solve the problem of a widening wealth gap as well as the problem of displaced workers. Taxation of robots and AI sounds like an interesting idea. I guess that's another way to generate tax revenue for the government!
If people receive UBI and don't need to work just to feed themselves, do you think they can use this freed-up time to learn new skills so they can earn a better income? I've heard of a lot of single moms doing to night school to train as nurses, but they still need a day job just to pay the bills.
A possible way for the general public to participate in the wealth created by tech companies is to allow them to trade a portion of their Universal Basic Income for shares of tech companies at a discounted price. This would be on top of their ability to buy more shares at market prices.
Looking forward to reading your upcoming post!
Thanks! I'm going to try to keep writing research-based commentaries on life, society, health and science.
Glad you enjoyed the post. Thanks for upvoting and resteeming!
Yes, it'll be interesting to see how those pilot studies go.
No problem, Good posts deserve it :D
Freed up time will definitely increase creativity and innovation. I just fear a situation where you as an regular person do not have a chance of success because there has been created an elite class and the rest.
Discounted shares are a great idea if we can ever convince the people in power (lobbyists) that this is a good idea :)
Wow! I love it! well, what if we just had everything free (without the mention or fear of communism as if it is some sort of poison) but the catch is everyone has to keep it looking nice!!!
You 2 might find my article My blockchain concept to achieve world peace interesting.
Thank you for expanding on this calamus056. Actually it was rather weird seeing your reply here since I had literally just read your post on "Curation problems". I closed your article, went to the "Replies" section and saw your reply!
Anyway. The blockchain is as you mentioned it in your article a very good tool when trying to create a fair market. I do wholeheartedly believe that blockchain will become the next pillar of our financial system and simultaneously I believe some kind of UBI is necessary in the foreseeable future.
So Yes, I find your ideas very interesting!
Thank you for your quote the other day by the way, on steemit.chat. I hope to have the post ready on Monday! Stay tuned :)
@ronni