The @wsj.com is upset with Elon for stating the obvious: that the impacts of AI will eventually lead us to the need for a universal basic income. Humans used to have to work all the time just to survive. Technology will make that unnecessary and even impossible. www.rawstory.com/elon-musk-26...
Did they really not already know this. Or just mad it was the weirdo saying it?
This begs the question why these folks are simultaneously tying themselves in knots over the fact that birth rates are declining. If human capital is no longer required, then why encourage people to have more babies? Is living in a dystopian Mad Max wasteland somehow appealing to them?
The point at which you criminalize poverty is when UBI must be required so people have a choice about breaking the law. We're already there.
To be fair, Elon Musk is known for having bad ideas...
I am so tired of this idea that people "refuse to work." There are so few of those. Most can't work, are occupied with responsibilities that are unpaid and therefore not recognized as work, or work their asses off and still barely survive.
We may have to hurry it up a bit.
Actually, I think we are fools, that the billionaire class are way ahead of us in this regard. AI and automation are their guillotines they'll use to end us. we'll sit idly by and let it happen
Elon has said this many times before and he’s right. AI and robots will continue to take over jobs, and if there is no universal income funded by the billionaires of the world, we may see the return of a very old analog technology - one from the late 1700s. Cake anyone?
Muskrat is of course planning to pay for UBI and encourage his fellow billionaires to follow suit, right?
If we use ML a bunch right now to do stupid things we can drive them all into bankruptcy because it's crazy expensive to run those models. We should have universal basic income anyways. Mutt, as always, is on the leading edge of stupid.
Is AI what created the Jetson's future world
While it sounds reasonable, there will never be UBI. The U.S. will become like Russia, or any number of other 3rd rate countries with a 1% class and nearly everyone else in severe poverty. It's not happening overnight, but it will surely come. Look at any wealth chart and extrapolate.
Even without AI- we need UBI
"Given the economic uncertainty surrounding AI, the idea of a social insurance program in the form of a minimum level of income for everyone has an understandable appeal." To me the gains in productivity due to technology make this idea inevitable, if perhaps just a tiny bit ahead of its time.
I know this looks like a radical progressive idea right now, (socialism!) but I'd be willing to bet that in 10 years things will look completely different, and it will be necessary. Things are going to change extremely quickly.
And/or lots of us will die in the streets.
They will be a reactive to this problem and abject poverty that lingers for generations will be the norm. No way politicians even grasp what Universal basic Income means until its too late to do anything about it. We cant even accomplish health care for all or food security for the nation.
I hope I live long enough to see some reform-minded progress
I hope so! I've been waiting for a looong time!
That’s what I hope for, 🤞🏼 however my expectation is that they will foment a civil war hoping the redundant people take each other out.
What will be demanded for the basic income? That is the creepiest, scariest thought.
UBI is unconditional by definition, so the answer is nothing, or it isn't UBI.
I see, I am not trusting enough now to think that'll happen. I was once, but not now.
Why would this be 10 years away. If we can do it then, why do we allow people to be in poverty now? Why do mothers have to stay home on welfare rather than work, because childcare costs more than they can earn?
Yup. That seems to make way too much common sense in a world run maybe by personal wealth, egos and profit margins.
If AI comes, we'll need it.
I don't think it will go that way. I see slavery in the end of that road.
Privatising the profit & socialising the problem was always the aim: tech bros will keep raking their beloved billions from GenAI & whoever is left still in employment will have to foot the bill for UBI. There’s a simple solution though: 100% tax on the 1%. It won’t be enough but it’s a good start
🐘 in the room. AI requires big data centers & massive amounts of water & electricity right? Isn’t Elon’s super-computer AI center polluting Memphis? The thing no one wants to mention are the environmental impacts. The massive use of electricity & water. Where do we get the extra electricity & water?
Most folks have no idea how enormously bad the environmental impact of digital technology is, and the price paid for storing all that data in the deceptively named "cloud". It's being ignored because there's too much money being made by a few very powerful interests. Humanity needs to be informed.
More people need to speak up and speak louder. You shouldn’t wait until a data center is proposed in your backyard to take notice.
I love how wsj is gaslighting poor people into hating the unemployed people
Same as it always was, same as it always was.
"Taking from workers to give to those who refuse to work is a recipe for resentment and a bumper crop of layabouts." They're missing important context. The idea is that AI will take away millions of jobs as populations continue to grow. Are they condoning tens of millions of homeless Americans?
So, Jeff Bezos, huh? He owns this rag now?
We can’t have nice things. It’s the only tenant those who have all the nice things, truly believe.
He's right for the wrong reasons.
The other answer is….. too many humans. That’s the more likely result of AI. Culling.
Let them fight.
the rich will never let it happen
So he wants to sell AI services to the government and then have the government give money to everyone. Then the government will have to raise taxes on all of us. Yeah - bad idea
Pretty much the same thing they said about computers. Yet, we're all still working, even more now, because we can work anywhere.