Universal Basic Income

[danhodge]

So i've been really interested in AI and automation recently, and (for some reason) in the economic implications. And the solution i've seen to it is the Universal Basic Income, which on paper looks great.

But I was wondering, what is everyone here's opinion of it? I'm trying to do my own research into how it would actually work out, but obvious it's based on a lot of ifs and maybes. I know this is more economics than computing, but i do think there is an overlap, seeing as it's a problem essentially caused by us.

If you aren't aware of it, here is a good explanation (its a really short, easy to understand explanation, don't worry):
Universal Basic Income: The Answer to Automation? (INFOGRAPHIC)

I'd love to hear any opinions from people much smarter than me, there is the chance that this is our future after all

Thanks,
Danny

 

[XWrench3]

Well, chances are, i am not smarter than you are. so take my opinion for what its worth. i worked for over 40 years here in the USA, before i destroyed my back on the job. doing so, qualifies me for Social Security Disability. which is not a free hand out, it was something i paid for in every single pay check. unfortunately, our government, in its infinite wisdom, chose not to offset my payments by buying insurance. it chose to take the money, put it in an account, and hold it there IN CASE i ever needed it. fine. EXCEPT, the politicians could not keep their hands out of the cookie jar. they saw all this money sitting there, and thought, hmmmm, i can "borrow" the money i want from social security, to fund what ever pet project they were trying to push thru. which again would be fine, EXCEPT they never had any plan, or intentions of ever paying back even one red cent. PLUS, they use Social Security monies as handouts, to anyone they want. people who are in this country ILLEGALLY, and heck, even TERRORISTS, that set off bombs in our own streets!
NOW, I REALIZE that Universal Basic Income is NOT the same thing as our Social Security system. BUT, the same thing could happen with the monies set aside to disperse such payments. Politicians are NOT a trustworthy group as a whole. So whoever tries this experiment, should set up some very substantial punishments for robbery of the funds. IMO, the money should be held in a Swiss bank, and it should take several ACCOUNTABLE people to issue the ANY of the funds. with TREASON as the criminal charge against ANYONE caught misappropriating funds. and a FIRING SQUAD as the punishment for a conviction of the charge.

 

[danhodge]

I think the idea is that it becomes a human right, so that if your government either purposefully or accidentally doesn't give you your money, it breaks their own human rights and you would have a very solid ground to sue and get more back than you lost.

And the thing is, UBI would in theory come close to fixing homelessness, would remove the difficulty around benefits (the UK's version of social security i think), would allow creative people to not need to work while they pursue their passion projects, etc, and would just generally make life a lot less stressful.

The only thing i wanna know is how affordable it is. I assume that if business have no need to employ people anymore, and just automate instead, then they will make a looot more money, and that will increase taxes that will help pay for this, but I can't see how it could bring it that amount of money. If everyone in the UK got £6831 ($10,000) a year, that would cost £437,184,000,000 (437 billion). The UK's current budget is £772 billion. The only way this could be affordable is if it brought massive increases to government income, and saved them a whole lot of money (we spend 1 billion on homelessness that we would save, we would save a lot of money on public sector stuff since we wouldn't need to hire many people, etc).

Can anyone think of anything else? I think i'm thinking way too much about this

 

[iParanormalx]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU

This video is a great watch and very pertinent. Check it out if you haven't its only 15 minutes.

 

[S0ULphIRE]

They're planning to trial this in Switzerland (if it passes vote).
It'd equate to USD $20k salary a year, and lets face it...that'd barely cover the essentials of food/clothing and some very very cheap accommodation.

You don't even have to look at it from a compassionate point of view - i.e. it may very well be entirely their own fault that they're broke and homeless, but the point is that their existence in your society is now causing flow on issues. Becuase the key word in my last paragraph is "ESSENTIALS". People *need* these things, and when they don't have money to get them, they'll turn to other means to get them. Robbery, theft, violent crime as immediate effects. Health issues and spread of disease as a secondary issue. Overuse of drugs as an escape.

And that's just the super obvious in-your-face examples. Then there's the cubicle workers who are forced to work in some god awful job just to stop themselves ending up like the group mentioned above. Mental health goes out the window, physical health nearly always following, and you end up with severely depressed overweight people who are at increased risk of a whole bunch of medical issues, placing more strain on an already overburdened healthcare.

At its core, I think the suggestion is this: it is less taxing for a society to provide a basic income for all, than it is to deal with the fallout of having people who cannot afford the basic things required to avoid squalor.

 

[danhodge]

Well, you say $20K would only cover essentials, but think about what would happen to an economy after UBI was put in place. A lot of people are likely to leave jobs (or maybe have already lost jobs), and since the business can't replace the employees, they will either move to another country if that's an option (this would of course be bad), or start to invest in automation/AI to replace those employees.

Once the new technology has paid itself off, the business are going to have a much more attractive profit margin on products, since they have to pay, what, 4 times less employees? Maybe even more, depending on the company? So it's very likely that these businesses will pass that saving on to the consumer, and everything will become much cheaper.

Think about Apple. If they didn't need anyone producing the iPhones, their costs would be reduced significantly. Also, all the materials that are used to build the iPhones - they will be cheaper for the same reason. I'd guess that it's very feasible to assume that the cost to produce an iPhone would be halved at a minimum.

So in short, the cost of living will be significantly reduced, so $20,000 would actually be more than enough to live on. In theory. But not straight away, the transition period will need easing

Yeah, the problem here is that everything i'm saying is based on assumptions, we can't know how much everything is actually going to change until it happens. So, please Switzerland, take the plunge for the rest of us

 

[carnageX]

My boss, a few co-workers, and I talked about this a few weeks ago because we all brought up the fact that more automation is coming.

Certainly going to be interesting times...at least I'll have a job for somewhat longer than more easily-automated jobs (as a software dev, somebody's gotta make the AI ! )

 

[danhodge]

Yeah true, hopefully a lot of us here would still be employable
Although, another argument for UBI is that it gives people a very big incentive to pursue their own projects, since the risk that is usually associated with leaving your job to form your own small business, or start doing something creative like starting a youtube channel, no longer exists - you always have the basic income to survive.
So it could lead to some pretty interesting passion projects, like more open source software

 

[Trotter]

I think the idea is that it becomes a human right

There are no "basic human rights," at least as far as I see it. That sounds pretty harsh but it is reality. Income is not a right; it is something you earn. Health insurance is not a right; it is something you pay for with the earnings you make or provided by your employer as a benefit to you. Food is not a right; you grow it, buy it, or barter for it. Clean air/water is not a right; you get what you can where you can.

I realize that my mentality is not the majority but it should be.

 

[S0ULphIRE]

^So you'd be perfectly fine with me building a smog machine right next to your house and blowing it at you hey? my land, I can do what I want, and you don't have a right to clean air so what are your grounds for complaining?