Topic: Universal Basic Income: Ideas on how to make it work? (Read 725 times)

This continuous technological development cannot be limited, if it is limited, it can hinder future progress.

Gray goo is a useful construct for considering low-probability, high-impact outcomes from emerging technologies. Thus, it is a useful tool in the ethics of technology. Daniel A. Vallero applied it as a worst-case scenario thought experiment for technologists contemplating possible risks from advancing a technology.[16] This requires that a decision tree or event tree include even extremely low probability events if such events may have an extremely negative and irreversible consequence, i.e. application of the precautionary principle. Dianne Irving admonishes that "any error in science will have a rippling effect".[17] Vallero adapted this reference to chaos theory to emerging technologies, wherein slight permutations of initial conditions can lead to unforeseen and profoundly negative downstream effects, for which the technologist and the new technology's proponents must be held accountable.

I'm not sure about this approach. Wouldn't it disincentivise work?

How did Donald Trump achieve record low unemployment and record high job creation BTW?

Was it through tax hikes and massive spending programs like UBI. Or simple and affordable tax cuts.

Government regulations have completely monopolized industry. It has made it next to impossible for regular people to launch startups anymore. We are completely dependent on external seed capital, and having connections who can grease the wheels regarding permitting, licensing, etc. This monopoly dynamic hands entire markets to a small number of large companies, who generally treat their workers like shit and gradually jack up prices on all consumers once the market has been cornered.

This is a good idea, but it’s also an idea that is not going to be easy to implement. Only big countries might afford to be paying every citizen in their country. And moreover they shouldn’t be paying the rich, the target should only be the citizens who are poor. Maybe they can set a limit that will be used for paying citizen; let’s say for example every month they will pay in money into the account citizens that has less than $100,000 or something like that. This will be handled by the arms of the government that is in charge of finance, the central bank and the rest of them.

Yes, agreed. This is all speculative. There will doubtless be some automation and some new job creation, but we are just estimating the extent. I will also concede that speculation as to what sort of technologies we will have 5 or 10 years down the line has a tendency to be wildly optimistic.
Similarly to yours, my personal experience also relates to these technologies. I have seen a lot of job losses through automation of lower-level technical roles, and the process is accelerating. This has been partially offset by the creation of new higher-level roles, but a considerably smaller number. Appreciate this is anecdotal, but I believe it to be representative of the underlying trend.

Yes, let's (get our robots to) check back in 10 years' time.

I agree with your post. But then, handing out money for free would send the wrong message.

The question though is is this a large or a small proportion of total jobs? It's difficult to envisage millions of new hospitality jobs suddenly opening up.

@Cnut237 human tends to be overly optimistic about technological development. Remember about flying cars and stuff when we watch old sci-fi movies? This argument about the robot and AI exist decades ago [...] the job loss because of automation will not be that huge because of robots' technological limitations and also expensive in terms of investment and maintenance cost. Even now, in 3rd world countries (and China), it's still cheaper to employ human force in various industries. Furthermore, some services always require human to human contacts, such as in hospitality.

Cnut237 and I were having a conversation about wealth distribution in this thread, where he mentions UBI. So rather than derailing that thread I'm going to open it here.

In case you don't know what UBI means it is a program for all citizens of a country, rich and poor, to be paid a fixed amount by their government and the goal of this program is to make sure everyone can pay for what they need. There are obviously many challenges to address before this works out, the most basic ones are:

- How much to pay? Since they're paying millions of people, they need to ensure they have enough money set aside for that, or UBI payments will deplete the government's money.
- What time interval to pay in - If this is not controlled we get the same consequence as paying too much at a time.
- Should people be filtered out based on financial status (EDIT: and employment status as well)? Presumably finance ministries of governments have records of every citizen's earnings (as in profit not balance), and a UBI proposal needs to be crafted meticulously to be very precise in the criteria for organizing everyone into (only a few) financial wellness categories, a vague set of requirements can be challenged by parliaments and get the proposal blocked.
- Corruption: Some of the budget can be stolen and laundered by people in charge of safekeeping it. Look at 1MDB for example, $700million was stolen from them with the help of the prime minister.

Let's assume people will be filtered by status, since giving everyone a fixed amount while keeping withing the budget risks not giving the most needy people enough money, the main hurdle faced here is parliamentary consensus of how to classify everyone in different categories so they can set different incomes for each group. And that's complicated because government budgets decrease and sometimes increase so you have politicians arguing that the income should be raised or lowered accordingly and this just entangles entire proposals.

We basically have nobody in power agreeing with each other on how much money to pay each person.

AI-driven robots won't be cheap [...] massive hurdles that will take decades of painful slow progress. [...] Then there is the whole new industry to maintain the army of robots and massive data centers. [...] all I have to go on is my personal experience, which is not directly related to AI but revolves around many of the same technologies.

What about people who can't work? You would need to create all sorts of exceptions and conditions, turning this into yet another welfare/unemployment type of bureaucracy layer. To me the greatest appeal of UBI would be the simplicity and less room for waste or corruption. Everyone gets it without having to prove anything.

I'm not saying AI will wipe out all jobs, merely that once human physical and cognitive skills are automated, it is difficult to envisage where new opportunities may arise.

I disagree with that. Massive technological advances over the last couple of hundred years didn't result in fewer jobs, quite the opposite. Nor will the "AI" happen overnight. Automation has been going on for decades and it's certainly something to keep in mind for someone choosing a career path.

A number of studies have predicted that automation will take a large proportion of jobs in the future, but estimates of the level of unemployment this will cause vary. Research by Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne of the Oxford Martin School showed that employees engaged in "tasks following well-defined procedures that can easily be performed by sophisticated algorithms" are at risk of displacement. The study, published in 2013, shows that automation can affect both skilled and unskilled work and both high and low-paying occupations; however, low-paid physical occupations are most at risk. It estimated that 47% of US jobs were at high risk of automation.[19] In 2014, the economic think tank Bruegel released a study, based on the Frey and Osborne approach, claiming that across the European Union's 28 member states, 54% of jobs were at risk of automation. The countries where jobs were least vulnerable to automation were Sweden, with 46.69% of jobs vulnerable, the UK at 47.17%, the Netherlands at 49.50%, and France and Denmark, both at 49.54%. The countries where jobs were found to be most vulnerable were Romania at 61.93%, Portugal at 58.94%, Croatia at 57.9%, and Bulgaria at 56.56%.[109][110] A 2015 report by the Taub Center found that 41% of jobs in Israel were at risk of being automated within the next two decades.[111] In January 2016, a joint study by the Oxford Martin School and Citibank, based on previous studies on automation and data from the World Bank, found that the risk of automation in developing countries was much higher than in developed countries. It found that 77% of jobs in China, 69% of jobs in India, 85% of jobs in Ethiopia, and 55% of jobs in Uzbekistan were at risk of automation.[112] The World Bank similarly employed the methodology of Frey and Osborne. A 2016 study by the International Labour Organization found 74% of salaried electrical & electronics industry positions in Thailand, 75% of salaried electrical & electronics industry positions in Vietnam, 63% of salaried electrical & electronics industry positions in Indonesia, and 81% of salaried electrical & electronics industry positions in the Philippines were at high risk of automation.[113] A 2016 United Nations report stated that 75% of jobs in the developing world were at risk of automation, and predicted that more jobs might be lost when corporations stop outsourcing to developing countries after automation in industrialized countries makes it less lucrative to outsource to countries with lower labor costs.[114]

The Council of Economic Advisers, a US government agency tasked with providing economic research for the White House, in the 2016 Economic Report of the President, used the data from the Frey and Osborne study to estimate that 83% of jobs with an hourly wage below $20, 31% of jobs with an hourly wage between $20 and $40, and 4% of jobs with an hourly wage above $40 were at risk of automation.[115] A 2016 study by Ryerson University found that 42% of jobs in Canada were at risk of automation, dividing them into two categories - "high risk" jobs and "low risk" jobs. High risk jobs were mainly lower-income jobs that required lower education levels than average. Low risk jobs were on average more skilled positions. The report found a 70% chance that high risk jobs and a 30% chance that low risk jobs would be affected by automation in the next 10–20 years.[116] A 2017 study by PricewaterhouseCoopers found that up to 38% of jobs in the US, 35% of jobs in Germany, 30% of jobs in the UK, and 21% of jobs in Japan were at high risk of being automated by the early 2030s.[117] A 2017 study by Ball State University found about half of American jobs were at risk of automation, many of them low-income jobs.[118] A September 2017 report by McKinsey & Company found that as of 2015, 478 billion out of 749 billion working hours per year dedicated to manufacturing, or $2.7 trillion out of $5.1 trillion in labor, were already automatable. In low-skill areas, 82% of labor in apparel goods, 80% of agriculture processing, 76% of food manufacturing, and 60% of beverage manufacturing were subject to automation. In mid-skill areas, 72% of basic materials production and 70% of furniture manufacturing was automatable. In high-skill areas, 52% of aerospace and defense labor and 50% of advanced electronics labor could be automated.[119] In October 2017, a survey of information technology decision makers in the US and UK found that a majority believed that most business processes could be automated by 2022. On average, they said that 59% of business processes were subject to automation.[120] A November 2017 report by the McKinsey Global Institute that analyzed around 800 occupations in 46 countries estimated that between 400 million and 800 million jobs could be lost due to robotic automation by 2030. It estimated that jobs were more at risk in developed countries than developing countries due to a greater availability of capital to invest in automation.[121] Job losses and downward mobility blamed on automation has been cited as one of many factors in the resurgence of nationalist and protectionist politics in the US, UK and France, among other countries.[122][123][124][125][126]

1. Algorithm wave: focused on automation of simple computational tasks and analysis of structured data
in areas like finance, information and communications – this is already well underway.
2. Augmentation wave: focused on automation of repeatable tasks such as filling in forms, communicating
and exchanging information through dynamic technological support, and statistical analysis of
unstructured data in semi-controlled environments such as aerial drones and robots in warehouses – this is
also underway, but is likely to come to full maturity in the 2020s.
3. Autonomy wave: focused on automation of physical labour and manual dexterity, and problem solving in
dynamic real-world situations that require responsive actions, such as in manufacturing and transport (e.g.
driverless vehicles) – these technologies are under development already, but may only come to full maturity
on an economy-wide scale in the 2030s.

The Social Security fund isn't intended to be an investment vehicle. It exists to pay monthly installments for retired and disabled people.

Are you saying the fund should be used to inflate the stock market, and that fixed income Social Security recipients should be exposed to those market risks? That would be better? If the market crashes, so does their monthly stipend.

What are those worse problems? Walk me through it, and give me more than rhetoric.

Do you see no problem with the current system, where most industries have been completely consolidated by a few giant companies, and where worker benefits (including employer-funded 401Ks) are disappearing and wages are stagnant? Is this an optimal trajectory for the economy?

I have two questions for those who have posted in this thread, but who are opposed to (at least trying) UBI.

1) Inequality is high, and is worsening. There are more people than there are jobs. But the biggest problem is the near future, with ever-increasing automation. Many skilled jobs will be at risk of automation as AI develops.

2) If so, what options other than UBI might be viable?

I am genuinely interested in answers and different opinions. I'm in favour of UBI largely because I think a solution is needed, and I can't think of anything that might be better.

Since we now have the entire population requesting a fixed budget this comes as an additional burden to taxpayers who now have to pay more taxes to finance this, and in return only get a percentage of their tax back as UBI (a fixed rate, upper class people also get this rate so it's not very useful to them). The higher tax bracket you're in the more you lose. But this strategy hurts the working class people the most

To be honest I'm starting to think we can implement better social welfare programs than UBI, I suggest two different programs for the unemployed and the workers in low tax brackets respectively. The workers program will pay only as much to cover basic benefits. The unemployed program will pay much more money but say half as much as an average job's salary. These amounts are then adjusted for each region or state depending on their standard of living.

To me the greatest appeal of UBI would be the simplicity and less room for waste or corruption. Everyone gets it without having to prove anything.

The major challenge to this is the wealth of a particular nation, how buoyant their economy is and how low their level of unemployment is. UBI is a good initiative, but in a struggling country/third word country it'll be impossible to achieve, a country still struggling with an impoverished economy and writhing debts cannot undertake this program.

A country with a high unemployment rate will also struggle, you'll expect the nation to channel much of their funds into creating more jobs for it's citizens, as that will give them a stable income, rather than paying them a little amount that can hardly meet their needs. There is also the problem of creating inflation by printing more money to fulfil this program, that being said, I'd only expect this sort of program to be possible in first world countries.

To be sustainable, it would need to be a function of ongoing tax revenue, so it would differ from country to country based on economic output and tax structure.

The strength of UBI is there is no means test or work requirement, so it doesn't suffer from the bureaucratic mess of red tape, government waste, human error, and months of waiting time we see with unemployment and other benefits.

I would view it less as a welfare payment for poor people, and more as a tax on large corporations who are making living wages increasingly unattainable, payable directly to all citizens or residents.

Yes, I think that's how it has to work. An equal amount for everyone. Obviously this means that progressive income tax brackets will need to be tweaked accordingly. In part, for example, the removal of an initial tax free allowance; you earn $1 a year, you would be taxed on that $1. And UBI is only partially self-funding; we would probably need a wealth tax or some other taxation of the ultra-rich to make it viable.

What it also does, is to grant bargaining power to prospective employees. In a country with high unemployment and people desperate for work, the employers can pay a pittance, and someone will still take the job, even if they know they are being exploited. UBI gives prospective employees the option to refuse a job if the conditions are exploitative.

Programs like UBI have existed for decades (if not centuries) and been commented upon by famous economists like Milton Friedman.
~
The second part of the quote describes how increasingly taxing work to subsidize non work is the opposite of everything he described to fix unemployment

Read the 2nd half of the quotation above, carefully.


Here Milton Friedman criticizes programs like UBI. What "makes it costly for employers to employ people"? UBI does exactly that through tax hikes on businesses and workers utilized to fund UBI. What increasingly taxes work, to subsidize non work? UBI does. Even if Milton Friedman doesn't mention UBI by name, we can clearly see he would be against the program.

This still wouldn't be effective if said UBI doesn't lift people out of poverty though. If people only have just enough to put food on the table and not much else, they're still going to need work, and all the power will remain with employers all the same. That's why I think it has to be enough to lift people above the poverty line.

You could maybe get away with a smaller amount -- I mean, something has to be better than nothing, right, especially for the poorest of the poor. It would at least solve the issue of hunger, but the issues you outlined, not as much. If the problem is companies not hiring to protect their bottom line, then it might be easier to address that with legislation over actually implementing UBI. They're shit out of luck either way anyway; you either cripple them with massive taxes to fund UBI, or you force them to spend more on labor.

American companies are paying much lower corporate taxes today thanks to the Trump tax cuts, yet the obvious trajectory is still slashing benefits across the board for workers. More part-time workers, more gig workers, more ICs, while wages haven't been increasing once you account for inflation. And this was true long before the pandemic; COVID-19 is just accelerating the trend.

1) Do you agree that if nothing is done, then inequality will worsen and jobs will become increasingly scarce, and that this is a problem that will need fixing?
2) If so, what options other than UBI might be viable?

I am genuinely interested in answers and different opinions. I'm in favour of UBI largely because I think a solution is needed, and I can't think of anything that might be better.