Would you support Universal Basic Income?

[Blurry_Buildings]

In a rapidly evolving world where AI and increasing automation in general lead to large gains in productivity at the expense of white collar jobs, would you support a Universal Basic Income? Would your support change if this came at the partial expense of other social programs, like social security and the military?

 

[DarkRange55]

My best friend who works in the tech industry doesn't like it in principle but he sees it as an eventual inevitability — if the majority of the population no longer needs to work due to advances in technology they can either have UBI or alternatively faux-jobs to keep themselves happy with a sense of purpose and accomplishment, not matter how artificial or trite.

I did a paper in college that I've mentioned here before and I said something along the lines of, by 2100, a form of basic income has been instituted in most first-world countries as a measure to protect the economy from collapse, thus ensuring most citizens have some money to spend to keep it going. A form of basic income has been instituted in most first-world countries as a measure to protect the economy from collapse, thus ensuring most citizens have some money to spend to keep it going.
Or maybe we can get the communist space utopia economy from Star Trek lore that I love haha


Not really a direct answer to your question but that at least helps move the conversation along haha

What say you, @noname223
If you still pay for chat got try out the o3 model. It's pretty insane. It has advanced reasoning. Not good for general questions but great for things that require extensive research or analysis. Just questions with some complexity that benefit from extensive web searches etc. It's cool. Just try it out.

 

[Dejected 55]

I mean, I plan to be dead, so it won't affect me... but I've always been in favor of this. The more jobs that get phased out to automation and AI, the more the economy is going to have a problem anyway. Doesn't matter how cheaply you can make your widgets if there are no people who can afford them because you phased them out of the workplace.

If people had their basic needs met at minimum... food, shelter, education, health care... then it frees up so much stress on your brain and allows you to be creative. There are always lazy people no matter the state of things. There are lazy people with jobs doing the bare minimum at those jobs and skating by! But long before there was an organized economy and way to profit, people were inventing and discovering things because that is the nature of people... but the stress of having to run in place as hard as you can just to not go backward keeps most people from being creative and inventive and who they really could be.

Taking that stress away would be a good start. And, we already throw away more food than is needed to feed everyone... so we're paying for enough food to feed everyone anyway, we're just wasting the food. And there are so many empty houses that no one can afford... and health care doesn't need to cost as much as it does... and so on...

We could lift everyone to a good standard of living by only sacrificing a little at the top and it would pay for itself with innovation and creativity down the line.

 

[Forever Sleep]

On the one hand, sure, I'd love someone to give me money to live and buy stuff. On the other, I don't know. Would the novelty wear off? Would I bother to work at all if I didn't have to? Would my employers bother to turn up to give me work?

My job is creative. Let's say everyone now gets the chance to be creative. It might have the opposite effect of swamping the market with stuff to the extent that there's far less demand. So, my 'industry' could in fact become more competitive rather than less. Plus, will be bother if machines can do it better?

Plus, I'm cynical of human nature. I don't think those with wealth and power particularly want equality. They need people to have enough money to consume the shit they produce but I doubt they want to invite them into their golf clubs or exclusive lifestyles. I just feel certain they will continue to find a way to make everything unequal ultimately.