Universal Basic Income (UBI) is coming

[Buckminster]

Elon mentioned this at AI day - in part caused by Tesla Bot.

 

[CLK350]

Reposting here for context into Elon's thinking
Wiki - Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable

What's mind blowing, Elon also has thought of the implications for the future in general philosophical terms, before getting to this point.

YouTube: Elon Musk It's Too Late Now -

Compilation of his various thoughts on the subject - listening to it live from is much better, but here are some snippets:

"There will be fewer and fewer jobs that a robot cannot do better. That's simply . .and I want to be clear that these are not things that I think . .that I wish would happen These are simply things that I think probably will happen.
I think we'll just end up doing a universal basic income..
So with automation there will come abundance.
Almost everything will get very cheap.
I think we will..
The harder challenge, much harder challenge is, how do people then have meaning, like a lot of people they derive meaning from their employment. So if you don't have .. if you're not needed, if there is not a need for your labor what do you .. what's the meaning? Do you have meaning, do you feel useless.
That's a much harder problem to deal with.
And how do we ensure that the future is the future that we want .. "

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Elon mentioned this at AI day - in part caused by Tesla Bot.

Elon Musk says a lot of things. Just think of the Tesla robot as the piece of AI day as the piece that was intended to generate press, while the rest of it was for recruitment.

In order to have UBI work in developed countries you'd have to have cheap, easily-programmable flexible robots, because once you give everybody enough money to live reasonably, the large chunk of the population that is unmotivated isn't going to shovel *sugar* for minimum wage.

 

[CLK350]

Elon Musk says a lot of things. Just think of the Tesla robot as the piece of AI day as the piece that was intended to generate press, while the rest of it was for recruitment.

In order to have UBI work in developed countries you'd have to have cheap, easily-programmable flexible robots, because once you give everybody enough money to live reasonably, the large chunk of the population that is unmotivated isn't going to shovel *sugar* for minimum wage.

I would disagree on the TeslaBot: please watch that segment again - Elon is dead serious, and the recruitment is as much for Tesla as an AI /robotics company (as stated in Tesla AI page) as it is to attract more talent in the NN /AI field - showing what Tesla has at their disposal in terms of computational power and amount of data as well as their current advances.

Re UBI, this is certainly more in the philosophical domain, because this is in an area he has no leverage into, nor interest, aka politics. However he is not shy about doing things he can do that he thinks is right: to wit, his foray into Bitcoin. How UBI would have to be implemented, how to give meaning to people who have previously depended on a job to give that meaning, is an open question that he says needs to be thought about.

In his usual no BS way, he enunciated a question most people and politicians seem to not understand ,want to address or see as irrelevant. Not surprisingly, for many "successful" people, like say Warren Buffet, or Tim Cook the answer is .. does it make money (for the company), and for many 'successful" individuals (for me).

 

[UkNorthampton]

It's been obvious to me for a long time that taxes need to switch to use/abuse of The Commons (radio spectrum, water, air, fishing, land).

Whatever you tax you get less of, so don't tax labour/brains, tax hoarding/selfish use and rentier behaviour becomes less common. Shops/houses are occupied, land is efficiently used rather than left to go up in value.

In my opinion, so much of the UK economy is based on rentier activity (aka 'people farming') rather than productive and inventive work/investment. Property rental is one of the few things ordinary (ish) people can do.

Universal Basic Income (Andrew Yang's Freedom Dividend) has also been an obvious thing that should be done to replace complex and arbitrary benefits (welfare) systems. Everyone gets enough to live a very simple life. Most will work on top and have the freedom to pursue higher quality endeavours.

In my experience, over a lifetime, most people have to take a break to re-educate/train, look after their own health, children, parents, partners - we all get ill, we were all kids and we'll all age (or die).

Universal basic Income could well allow people to retrain to more productive careers ahead of time, rather than be stuck where they are until they lose their job and in some countries housing and healthcare as well as income.

So the worry most people have is of slackers - I think most people will do productive things, many will do charitable work, some will slack. Slacking is less of a societal problem than some of the crime that is done now to survive.

I see most people with time have hobbies, most people see work and the education needed to get it as self-defining, socialising and needed activity.

For me, I'd spend time on my hobbies & family. Much better than long commutes, bad care for elderly and children. When younger, I would be building companies, pushing boundaries.

Most discussion relates to nation-states, but to me this goes beyond and I can imagine that EVENTUALLY (many years), global UBI based on global COMMONS is a thing or perhaps personal/part-share in a TeslaBot for personal use/income might happen.

This might be the model for Mars before Earth.

Elon Musk is a fan of "The Hitchhikers' Guide To The Galaxy" and "The Culture" series - there might be enough wisdom to find a way forward

A Few Notes on the Culture, by Iain M Banks - Iain M Banks (where Elon gets a lot of his drone ship names from

Its AIs cooperate with the humans of the civilisation; at first the struggle is simply to survive and thrive in space; later - when the technology required to do so has become mundane - the task becomes less physical, more metaphysical, and the aims of civilisation moral rather than material.

Briefly, nothing and nobody in the Culture is exploited. It is essentially an automated civilisation in its manufacturing processes, with human labour restricted to something indistinguishable from play, or a hobby.

No machine is exploited, either; the idea here being that any job can be automated in such a way as to ensure that it can be done by a machine well below the level of potential consciousness; what to us would be a stunningly sophisticated computer running a factory (for example) would be looked on by the Culture's AIs as a glorified calculator, and no more exploited than an insect is exploited when it pollinates a fruit tree a human later eats a fruit from.

Where intelligent supervision of a manufacturing or maintenance operation is required, the intellectual challenge involved (and the relative lightness of the effort required) would make such supervision rewarding and enjoyable, whether for human or machine.

“This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.”​

― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

 

[Buckminster]

Really thought provoking argument - pretty well balanced.

They didn't really talk about the idea of introducing UBI slowly so that we can see the affect before it is too late. Key understanding for me is:

1) How many folk currently on welfare choose to work in addition to taking UBI to earn more money
Vs
2) How many workers choose to stop working once they start receiving UBI

If 1) is = or > than 2) then UBI looks more attractive.

Also, not enough discussion on the affect of UBI on inflation.

 

[Buckminster]

Robot chef Flippy can flip up to 300 burgers a DAY and cook the fries
Tick tock

 

[Buckminster]

No answers here:

 

[Buckminster]

AI coming after jobs discussed here after 1:02:

Should be okay in short term but not long. I am not even sure on the short term.

 

[betstarship]

Well, Vanguard now has a cash account at 4.25% rate.

 

[Buckminster]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1644966442083790853

 

[UkNorthampton]

I've been a fan of Universal Basic Income* for a while. As jobs get more technical, outsourced to cheaper countries, there are fewer lower-paid but steady jobs, less entry jobs. Junior receptionists who later took on further roles, perhaps in Admin, Office Management etc have mostly gone. Local Junior Solicitors roles have often been outsourced or go to specialised companies who can do conveyancing or other work much more cheaply.

I've also been thinking about whether Universal Basic Robot should be a thing. If even the poorest had one, perhaps they could rent it out, have it as recording/sentry. It could even start as one day a month/year assignments to limit the number that are initially required and trial the use.

Either as a tax or as an assigned robot, I think some governments will tax** Optimus type robots in some way, even if just X days of service/labour per year, but financial is most likely. You kind of have to look back at feudal (or worse) systems to imagine a future of a privileged class supported by a separate labour force.

Elon Musk had been accused of Speciesism / Speciesist thoughts, well it's hard to not be. I don't think I've got my head around that one. Not an issue yet, but in 50 years - sentience?

* Also Land Value Tax - taxing the usage of land, radio spectrum and the external effects (Externality: What It Means in Economics, With Positive and Negative Examples) of own actions eg pollution (chemical eg ICE/industrial; noise eg airports). I'd rather tax those that use or capture natural resources ("Tragedy of the Commons") than those who live modestly but use labour/muscle or intellect to earn their money. Whichever one you tax you get less of - tax hoarding/selfish use rather than useful work and progress. I'm particularly against things like Land Banking (speculating on future price rises, influenced by shortages) rather than businesses able to use the land/building to do production activity.

** South Korea reduces tax breaks for robots, others have proposed robot tax - Robot tax - Wikipedia

 

[heltok]

Elon Musk had been accused of Speciesism / Speciesist thoughts, well it's hard to not be. I don't think I've got my head around that one. Not an issue yet, but in 50 years - sentience?

It's an interesting concept that sometimes forces you into uncomfortable hypotheticals. I will give you some examples and tie it back into UBI.

Let's say we gene edit at cow to have human level intelligence. Can we still kill it for food? Should we give it rights? Should it get UBI? How about if we selectively breed chimpanzees to be more human-like. At what stage do we give them human rights?

What if we make a AI that is human level intelligence? Let's say we simulate every neuron in the human brain. Is it okay to shut it off? Does it get UBI? What if we make 10 billions copies of it? Do each of them get UBI?

Let's say we are able to upload a persons brain to the cloud. Do these "people" on the cloud get full human rights? Can we delete them if we want? Do they get UBI?

Let's say we can make a human clone of us with an AI brain. Does it get UBI? How about a human brain inside an optimus?

Also the problem with UBI is that some countries will benefit greatly from AI and they can do a large sum of UBI for everyone in the country. Some countries will be falling behind and lose their industries to ASIs. Should we extend UBI to other countries? On what criterias? Nigeria, North Korea, Russia, China etc? Different UBI for the own country and other countries?

Just some food for thought.

 

[UkNorthampton]

It's an interesting concept that sometimes forces you into uncomfortable hypotheticals. I will give you some examples and tie it back into UBI.

Let's say we gene edit at cow to have human level intelligence. Can we still kill it for food? Should we give it rights? Should it get UBI? How about if we selectively breed chimpanzees to be more human-like. At what stage do we give them human rights?

What if we make a AI that is human level intelligence? Let's say we simulate every neuron in the human brain. Is it okay to shut it off? Does it get UBI? What if we make 10 billions copies of it? Do each of them get UBI?

Let's say we are able to upload a persons brain to the cloud. Do these "people" on the cloud get full human rights? Can we delete them if we want? Do they get UBI?

Let's say we can make a human clone of us with an AI brain. Does it get UBI? How about a human brain inside an optimus?

Also the problem with UBI is that some countries will benefit greatly from AI and they can do a large sum of UBI for everyone in the country. Some countries will be falling behind and lose their industries to ASIs. Should we extend UBI to other countries? On what criterias? Nigeria, North Korea, Russia, China etc? Different UBI for the own country and other countries?

Just some food for thought.

Exactly, a lot of possibilities. I'm not too fussed over animals as I think we just shouldn't and I think one of the few economic reasons will be to do with pets/service animals (guide dogs). I'd just ban it.

Of course it would be nice for a super intelligent animal to want you to eat it and that they get pleasure from preparing themselves to be eaten.

AI is a bit different, Human-like intelligence is coming in all probability.

It's a good reason to read science fiction, Asimov, Iain M Banks, Douglas Adams and more. Gets you thinking, preparing. Hmm, which CEO knows his science fiction?

I think AI will want us in the Universe for entertainment value.

 

[heltok]

Of course it would be nice for a super intelligent animal to want you to eat it and that they get pleasure from preparing themselves to be eaten.

Haha, thought you were gonna link:

Hannibal justifies eating other humans because he sees himself as superior to them, like many humans see themself compared with cows, chickens etc. It's an interesting philosophical topic that quickly gets uncomfortable as we find ourself in the company of cannibals we prefer to believe that we are different from.

 

[UkNorthampton]

Haha, thought you were gonna link:

Hannibal justifies eating other humans because he sees himself as superior to them, like many humans see themself compared with cows, chickens etc. It's an interesting philosophical topic that quickly gets uncomfortable as we find ourself in the company of cannibals we prefer to believe that we are different from.

I'll stick to self-aware short pigs rather than long pig. Just hope the AI doesn't feed on this kind of learning

 

[Buckminster]

Musk has said on multiple occasions that Universal Basic Income (UBI) is probably necessary at some point.

Funding that is going to have to come from the profits of successful enterprise.

Maybe that’s not a per-bot tax, but effect is eventually the same.

 

[Cosmacelf]

Yes, IF Teslabot ends up displacing workers to the degree that unemployment spikes, then, yes, you’ll have robot taxes to pay for entitlement programs. As it turns out, we are going through a baby boomer retirement right now, so the bots are coming in right at the right time to not upset anything in the near to mid term.

And as far as robo taxes go, Tesla will have plenty of margin to pay them.

 

[Buckminster]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1665722635001495555

 

[Buckminster]

Not sure Elon to say this:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1686373010243018752