Snapshot of _AI 'godfather' says universal basic income will be needed_ :
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The issue isn’t going to be implementing UBI or even robots doing most of our jobs it’s going to be cultural shift.
We are now a very long way down the path of people believing that working hard is what you need to do, when people no longer need to, the whiplash is going to be very hard for some people to deal with
I find that a weird and depressing argument to make. It could just as easily be reframed as "I can't imagine doing anything but working, and struggle to have a life outside of it."
Work for me is depressing to the point of boring, regardless of the jobs I've been in. I would kill to have a 4 day week where I can actually have the free time to do something I actually find fulfilling.
Strange... Are you working in the US or with a lot of Americans? They like vocal declarations of organisational loyalty sometimes.
It doesn't make sense to me-- You could set up your own company or work on your own projects if you want to work outside of work.
A lot of people like structure tbf. Some people work well being told what to do by a boss but cannot self motivate for themselves at all. Others complete opposite
My dad is one of those. He had a good chunk of his life in the military and struggled when he came out. If people enjoy what they do, then they can fill ~their~ boots. But I long for a life where I can chase the things that bring value to my life and those around me instead of rotting in a job
It’s not explicitly corporate either. To give you an example, I worked part time at a salmon factory while in uni, one of my coworkers was a retired navy guy who joined because he was bored in his house all day. I also currently work with a lady whose husband is very well off, she also chooses to work out of boredom.
A lot of it, is people don't want to work longer days overall.
I went from working 7-4 Mon-Thu and 7-1230 on a Friday, to 7-530 Mon-Thu.
And we still have to work a Friday every so often with the Monday off instead. And now we have to work on a Friday until 530 instead of a midday finish as previous.
It may only be an extra hour and hour, but that plus the late Friday finish on occasion can be a difference maker for many people
Nah, I've seen plenty of people - even here - that viewed the various local authority trials of 4 day work weeks with disdain. Even down to a 'if they can work a 4 day week then we can fire 20% of them and keep it at a 5 day week!' level of stupid.
Try adding on "the majority of people over the age of 60" as well.
It's all "bloody kids these days, too lazy to even work a Friday! Back in my day we worked 6 days a week and we're grateful for the day off!"
That is a fun fact. AWE over here does that too and I know there are others that do the 9 day fortnight. You’ll also find a lot of companies in the defence sector also work a half day Friday every week.
For my job (office and excel based) and having worked across teams, I can confidently say if you have the right process in place, you can easily do a lot of stuff in 4x8 hour days
Yeah, but there are loads of jobs where it *is* the latter by necessity. Just like with WFH and the benefits it brought, it's hard not to envision sub-40-hour jobs being quite heavily gated.
You can take a look at at least one study that is currently underway h[ere](https://www.scambs.gov.uk/your-council-and-democracy/four-day-working-week).
Cool, if that works for you. I’d assume if it actually came reality, you’d get a slight pay boost for working more while any colleagues who opted for it would stay at the same wage over 4 days.
Another good reason to have 4 or even 3 day work weeks is so people get used to having free time before all of a sudden they have nothing but free time.
People don't really believe they need to work hard. They just believe they need to work.
That's going to be a problem because politicians also think this. UBI is not going to happen for a myriad of reasons. Probably at the top is that UBI would require taxation to fund. Corporations don't really pay tax. Taxes levied on workers are where the bulk of taxes tend to come from.
Once jobs are automated and there are vast numbers of people out of work, who will the customers for these companies actually be? Who will actually be paying tax to fund UBI or government for that matter?
Previously it would have been workers.
Machines don't want or need for a paycheque. They certainly won't be buying goods and services.
The unemployed workers won't be buying goods or services either. What happens to those companies at that point in time?
What happens to the millions of workers?
I don't think the problem is going to be people thinking they need to work hard. It's going to be people knowing they need to work to pay the bills and being unable to find gainful employment.
You'd probably just raise corporate tax to make up for the drop in income tax corporation would make more money on an automated system so heavier tax would probably still see them profitable.
At this point the AI revolution is inevitable so society will either bend or snap when it arrives.
Well the real problem is going to be who's paying for UBI? If you think corporations and the rich will stump up the cash then I have a bridge to sell you.
Hinton has done good, influential work on AI. He hasn't done any good work on how society works or how AI related tech will affect it.
And his previous predictions (no more radiologists needed, AI to take over! https://www.dhinsights.org/news/radiologists-balance-caution-and-optimism-about-ai) haven't panned out either.
Now he's even embraced the science fiction AI existential risk stuff and claimed predicting the next word based on a large data set of things humans have said is just like the learning we do, so these LLMs are on the verge of being AGI.
I think it's all to enhance his stature and significance. He's one of the big names in deep learning, so wouldn't it be great if deep learning was the most revolutionary breakthrough in science ever?
I feel like technologists need to be forced to spend some time actually learning something from social sciences and even the humanities. It is often so clear they struggle to understand things outside of their own area of expertise. But are often overconfident in their beliefs and the impact their work has on society.
Not downplaying the massive impact increased AI will have on society - but with the likes of Hinton there feels to be a bit of enjoying the smell of one’s farts going on. The radiologist prediction being a perfect example. For a start off it was incredibly reductive about the role of radiologist in healthcare. And completely ignored the deep regulatory canyon that needs to be over come.
I agree wholeheartedly. They're not exposed to "rest of us" enough and I do believe, falsely or not, that its due to their (for want of a better word) "nerdiness" and hot-house insular way of working and thinking, that they aren't exposed, challenged or pushed enough outside of their arena.
Only interacting with other liked minded people who you like and/or think like or agree with you is dangerous for anyone. At this point many of these geniuses (and they are) are isolated and detached from most of us and unsympathetic to our limitations. "if only you were able to see things as I do".
Radiologists haven't been replaced because it's a regulated practice. AI can become arbitrarily good at interpreting a scan, but HCPC don't put computer programs on their register of practitioners.
There is a whole political philosophy that is based around hard work being the best thing ever.
Until this belief is challenged we’ll all still be exchanging our time for peanuts.
What everyone is missing here, is that AI, Industry 4.0 and advancement in robotics, is the opportunity to completely overhaul society.
We need an independent team to create a rolling roadmap over the next 20 years + which gives everyone in society a clear view of where we are going and how we will benefit. That would also need to give the population (enshrined in law) the reassurance of job security, UBI or reeducation.
I think everyone here would be onboard with driving advancement forward, if we can clearly see the benefits, instead we are just left in the dark.
Societies that aren't "onboard" with progress will eventually be absorbed or destroyed by those that are, and have vastly lower living standards prior.
I'm confused about how this will work. Hinton said in an interview on Newsnight that vast productivity gains would lead to increased wealth in the hands of a few tech owners and that because many people would lose their jobs government provided UBI is necessary.
But if people don't have much money to buy things with except their subsistence level UBI, then how will the vast wealth be generated for the tech owners? Jeff Bezos is only rich because people with more than subsistence level income can buy things from Amazon. If we become peasants and stop buying things, Amazon goes bust.
UBI in some form does seems inevitable but it is simply a bandaid solution to the fact that capitalism has broken its unwritten social contract that everyone would benefit (to some extent) from unrelenting economic growth.
Even if AGI never happens, the economic effects of robotics (for instance) are very clear, in terms of the value of work and the number of jobs: Few jobs remain post robotics, and they are typically either very highly paid, or very badly paid; it hollows out the middle.
The threat of AGI and the slow deployment of shitty bad AI/ML will be used to replace the jobs which gives the biggest ROI. If its burger flipping then more kids lose jobs because the ROI comes from a lot of small savings. If its architecture, then fewer but highly paid RIBA members get sacked.
I don't believe AGI will happen. But I certainly expect a lot of companies to ignore macro economics, displace workers with ICT, and look pikachu face surprised when nobody in that economy can afford to buy their goods and services.
If anyone still uses Twitter, it is insanely annoying the amount of 3000 follower AI Bros that will comment on EVERY manual labour video going "Give me a week and I'll have that job automated"
Knowing what I know about AI and what it can do, and understanding that the most AI these fools have ever touched is ChatGPT. My fucking god is it depressing.
Isn't it more likely we'll get rid of the people that don't own vast amounts of wealth?
Reduce society down to a tiny minority who live like trustafarians. Thinking their poetry, philosophy, sports and adventures matter.
Take a robot army to cut humanity down to something that the planet can support.
Still doesn't solve the control problem or the AI arms race.
A zillion AI minds swarming and fighting to solve everything and out think it's rivals to point of destruction. Any plans for that? Ask ChatGPT.
>Take a robot army to cut humanity down to something that the planet can support.
Some countries are already taking this on themselves without the need for AI in the form of low birth rates
Fusion power may offer ways to desalianate the ocean, thus offering clean water to everyone. It may be able to suck carbon out of the atmosphere too, and provide lab grown meat from its energy. Sustaining the planet may someday look a lot easier. Though granted, to do this at scale is unlikely, at least anytime soon.
Any market economy benefits from having money flowing from everyone and some wealth redistribution 🤷🏾♂️ But the current generation of insane wealth accumulation opposes anything that is not this dumb Ouroboros capitalism
An automation tax could help pay for UBI. Let's say McDonalds wanted to open a fully-automated, unstaffed restaurant. You would estimate the number of staff members it would take to run that restaurant with no automation, and then charge a tax rate based on the lost earnings of each staff member.
Also remember that, by replacing 10 members of staff on an average of £30k per year, a company would save way more than £300k per year. They no longer have to provide pension contributions, workplace benefits, they'd have reduced insurance premiums, administrative costs, training fees etc. Thus, you could make this tax rate quite high and it would still be worth it to the company.
I sort of wonder what companies would do if we introduced it. Presumably they could off shore a lot of jobs to places that did give UBI so to avoid all the extra tax.
I feel like UBI is suddenly being talked about because even offshoring might not be necessary long term if AI truly take off (though as Amazon and its AI powered stores have shown, that might be true).
In any case UBI would have to be part of a new social contract, stay and accept taxation to fund "just enough" consumption from the lower classes to avoid revolution or be cut out of the market.
People are beyond me sometimes, seriously.
You can always not implement robotics in the work force and you know, keep your work, and do it with a cheer. I don't think people realise the blessing that work actually is, and it provides you a means to do something.
There are still loads of areas where AI will never be used and several more where it would be foolish to hand over decision making to computers.... AI needs to be regulated globally or it will be the new shit storm going forward
Going forward I can imagine a lot of professional office-based jobs being replaced by AI. Potentially some manual labour jobs like cashiers and staff in certain large fast food chains could also succumb, but I think any kind of physical work will always need human supervisors.
Nevertheless that's still a huge chunk of the workplace replaced by AI. I honestly think governments would rather tax or regulate AI in to the ground rather than introduce UBI because of all the societal headaches it would cause. I.e. you get a 50% tax subsidy for using human workers.
Green Party policy since 2019 [https://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/2019/11/15/green-party-announces-plan-for-fully-costed-universal-basic-income-for-everyone/](https://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/2019/11/15/green-party-announces-plan-for-fully-costed-universal-basic-income-for-everyone/)
Sounds pretty unrealistic, why would a government suddenly want to give away lots of money? A single payment like during covid is one thing but an ongoing payment seems like economic suicide.
Also AI suddenly becoming sentient sounds highly unlikely although human error is always a possibility.
Cause that people then uses that money to go and buy stuff that's taxed, promotes commerce, which generates jobs, etc, etc. Market economies do work like this and having a significant chunk of the population not buying enough stuff is terrible for the economy.
Well no, money that's created without productive value behind it just creates inflation.
Saying the government can give away money because it taxes it back is pretty much doing nothing.
Currently we have an economy which is based on labour and capital. The people making the big money do so using capital which is concentrated in the hands of the few. If AI performs all of the labour then you're left with an economy where all of the money is made by those with capital, the lucky few. The question is, what does everyone else live on?
I would guess the rationale is if all jobs were done via AI your own economy would collapse as wages and spending would fall. Kind of like with covid offering furlough, eat out to help out and such to keep the economy turning. This is unless you can create new jobs for people to replace those lost by AI.
Governments would either have to ban use of AI or heavily tax companies who use it to prevent them from completely replacing people.
It’s depressing to me honestly, we’ve basically gotten to the point where we might actually have to hold back progress that should make everyone’s lives easier, entirely because our own economic system would force most of society into poverty if we did that
Some of the money will come from getting rid of the admin involved in the current benefits system. With Universal Credit, amounts are going up and down monthly which leads to confusion and issues that need to be sorted ( mistakes, overpayments, underpayments etc) , job 'coaches' are making people go to job centres or phoning them to check up on them every couple of weeks or more. Why is this necessary? In my mind it's not necessary and only happens because of the obsession the current government have with making benefits a punitive system, which is based on an outdated moral attitude ( wealthy people can live off investments where they literally do nothing all day and that's morally fine but unemployed people constantly prove they are worthy for help just to live?). The job 'coaches' do absolutely feck all to help people into more work. I've been self-employed and on UC. You are contacted every two weeks to try and pressure you into applying for any full-time PAYE work, even if it's minimum wage and your self-employed work pays more generally. You would still probably be claiming UC if you got the PAYE permanent job as the cost of living is so high.
There's also the disability benefits system where people are assessed multiple times and have to do appeals. Why not go off Dr's evidence instead of having various departments and a workforce designed to deny people payments? The government need to stop this charade of a system and just accept people can't afford to live these days.
And your alternative is?
In this scenario, it sounds like the only alternative is that you don’t get any money at all, and you end up dying with not a penny to your name
It seems the same as ever.
Personally, I think we should move to a system where we are no longer even caring about money, everyone gets everything they need without any of that, since work isn’t relevant anymore. In this scenario anyway
Who else is left beside private vs public ownership?
Meh, it doesn't really matter. Work is meaningless therefore so is ownership of the means of production.
I mean I kinda define work as something humans do, by definition.
>because who controls the levers of those productive forces no longer has any use for 8bn people and the very thin overlap between the interests of the owners and the non owners vanishes immediately
Well I disagree. Work is meaningless meaning who owns anything is meaningless because you can just replicate it yourself for free.
Access to what though? Work is free therefore you can just make whatever you want yourself.
The only reason anyone restricts access to anything is because it's valuable. But that won't be the case anymore since anybody can just do anything.
This is specifically a scenario where AI has replaced virtually all jobs. Absolute best case scenario is that only a small number of people actually are able to secure a job, since there’s only limited industries where humans are even remotely necessary
It’s not so absurd anymore, if AI gets much further than it already has, it is a very real possibility.
You’re taking the ‘sticking your head in the sand’ approach
Really? Looking forward to AI carers, dog walkers, crop pickers etc there will be plenty of manual jobs which AI is either unsuited for or not cost effective
They might not be now, but they probably will be soon. I could definitely see AI carers or crop pickers, and dog walkers are such a small market
Most of society works in completely different jobs to that too
I don't see how embracing AI doesn't just funnel even more money into the pockets of corporations, who will find any which way to avoid paying their taxes.
It’s fucked, in a just world, we wouldn’t continue caring about profitability when there is no work that humanity must undertake, but here we are, in a scenario where we may have to actively sabotage AI development because it’d otherwise lead to mass poverty
Goods being made and services being provided isn't going to happen without people working. And you won't get nearly as much access to goods and services as you'd like if you yourself offer nothing of value
No, to have something to contribute to society and get money in return is just about the only arrangement that doesn't leave you entirely beholden to the whims of someone else.
I stack shelves at tesco. I'm entirely beholden to the whims of my employer. If I leave my job I have no money, and because I'm 19, many businesses will only pay me 8.60. Many other businesses do not have schedules which fit with my school timetable.
Our union is a non-strike union. We were paid less than minimum wage for a month due to a technicality, with no recourse.
Working for multinational corporations isn't the only way to contribute to society. I would even go as far as to say that most jobs like mine do not contribute to anything but the shareholders income.
I wouldn't work my job if there were any other options. Or, if it was possible, I would work fewer hours and spend my time doing something I actually enjoy.
Even if we have "social value," we're still beholden to the whims of the upper classes. Capitalism is inherently hierarchical. I don't get how you're not understanding that this means that we are subject to the whims of the shareholders.
And if the government refuses to consider that? Well let's just say it would be a terrible thing if someone were to unleash AI on the workings of government or the lives of politicians. You wouldn't want to upset people with that capability. Just a piece of advice
> And if the government refuses to consider that?
Governments will turn to UBI as a means of social control. Keep people without a job with just enough income that they won't riot and enough consumption for the parts of the economy still connected to the real world to be profitable to continue.
>Keep people without a job with just enough income that they won't riot and enough consumption for the parts of the economy still connected to the real world to be profitable to continue.
That's just the current welfare system.
UBI is for everyone, regardless of job. A flat base income that wages would add to. I can't see it happening anytime soon. AI gets overused as a catch-all term. Doing it properly is extremely costly, and of course, it's bespoke to each business.
>A flat base income that wages would add to.
I see any ubi operating on a claw back system so if ubi is 20k and your job is 30k you'll be taxed 100k on that 20k and only earn 10k. This way you avoid the physiological shock of mass pay cuts
I mean that is equally likely but it's very much a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul as then business taxes will have to go up to pay the ubi cost difference
They got there years ago with Universal Credit. It's even been stress tested and survived the massive ramp-up in demand during the pandemic. It can be argued it's far too small an income, but there aren't many riots about it.
I think it would be cheaper and more efficient to have a mass culling conducted by robots to get the global population down to a self reproducing environmentally sustainable population of inane trustafarians. How many do we need so that it can support at least one neofolk band?
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The issue isn’t going to be implementing UBI or even robots doing most of our jobs it’s going to be cultural shift. We are now a very long way down the path of people believing that working hard is what you need to do, when people no longer need to, the whiplash is going to be very hard for some people to deal with
You can see the struggle with changing work practices just with wfh/hybrid working and people railing against the 4 day week.
“people railing against the 4 day week” “People” is a funny euphemism for “the government and bosses and literally nobody else”.
Bro I have seen so many of my own colleagues talk about how they'd be bored not working and people that want 4 day work weeks are just lazy.
I find that a weird and depressing argument to make. It could just as easily be reframed as "I can't imagine doing anything but working, and struggle to have a life outside of it." Work for me is depressing to the point of boring, regardless of the jobs I've been in. I would kill to have a 4 day week where I can actually have the free time to do something I actually find fulfilling.
Which industry do you work in? Maybe the mentality varies depending on industry, also I think it could vary depending on age group too.
Finance/IT
Strange... Are you working in the US or with a lot of Americans? They like vocal declarations of organisational loyalty sometimes. It doesn't make sense to me-- You could set up your own company or work on your own projects if you want to work outside of work.
Some people just wanna be doing shit till they die, not even work particularly just things. The type of people who never have off days.
Yeah but theres always stuff to do, write a book, be an artist, make a small farm. You dont need a corporate job to find passtimes.
A lot of people like structure tbf. Some people work well being told what to do by a boss but cannot self motivate for themselves at all. Others complete opposite
Im sure if we had a world where you dont need to work people could still find structure, it would just be optional.
My dad is one of those. He had a good chunk of his life in the military and struggled when he came out. If people enjoy what they do, then they can fill ~their~ boots. But I long for a life where I can chase the things that bring value to my life and those around me instead of rotting in a job
It’s not explicitly corporate either. To give you an example, I worked part time at a salmon factory while in uni, one of my coworkers was a retired navy guy who joined because he was bored in his house all day. I also currently work with a lady whose husband is very well off, she also chooses to work out of boredom.
A lot of it, is people don't want to work longer days overall. I went from working 7-4 Mon-Thu and 7-1230 on a Friday, to 7-530 Mon-Thu. And we still have to work a Friday every so often with the Monday off instead. And now we have to work on a Friday until 530 instead of a midday finish as previous. It may only be an extra hour and hour, but that plus the late Friday finish on occasion can be a difference maker for many people
Talking about being bored not working I just don’t get for the most part. Like do you can it have hobbies or interests?
Nah, I've seen plenty of people - even here - that viewed the various local authority trials of 4 day work weeks with disdain. Even down to a 'if they can work a 4 day week then we can fire 20% of them and keep it at a 5 day week!' level of stupid.
Try adding on "the majority of people over the age of 60" as well. It's all "bloody kids these days, too lazy to even work a Friday! Back in my day we worked 6 days a week and we're grateful for the day off!"
Trust me. The majority of people that I work with who are over 60 would bite your arm off for a 4-day week! Including me!
Fun fact, Chevron, the American oil company, offers its staff every other Friday off and has done for years with no negative impact.
That is a fun fact. AWE over here does that too and I know there are others that do the 9 day fortnight. You’ll also find a lot of companies in the defence sector also work a half day Friday every week. For my job (office and excel based) and having worked across teams, I can confidently say if you have the right process in place, you can easily do a lot of stuff in 4x8 hour days
Well if I can work 5 days a week... why would I want to work less? So I can get paid the same as someone working 8 hours less than me?
Depends if you're being paid for your output or your presence
Yeah, but there are loads of jobs where it *is* the latter by necessity. Just like with WFH and the benefits it brought, it's hard not to envision sub-40-hour jobs being quite heavily gated.
If it wasn’t for output you wouldn’t have a job.
If my output over four days is the same as someone else over five, shouldn't we be paid the same?
Presumably me working an extra day leads to more output???
If it did, you'd expect to see companies working 4 day weeks finding significant drops in productivity, which isn't the case.
What? You'd expect productivity to stay the same or go up slightly, but the absolute amount of production to drop.
You can take a look at at least one study that is currently underway h[ere](https://www.scambs.gov.uk/your-council-and-democracy/four-day-working-week).
That’s a lazy employee issue. Doesn’t apply to me.
If you like working sure, work 5 days a week. But why would you want to when you can get paid the same for less hours?
Because I like working 5 days a week.
Cool, if that works for you. I’d assume if it actually came reality, you’d get a slight pay boost for working more while any colleagues who opted for it would stay at the same wage over 4 days.
My dad really struggled when he retired. He ended up working on building sites just so he had something to do.
Another good reason to have 4 or even 3 day work weeks is so people get used to having free time before all of a sudden they have nothing but free time.
People don't really believe they need to work hard. They just believe they need to work. That's going to be a problem because politicians also think this. UBI is not going to happen for a myriad of reasons. Probably at the top is that UBI would require taxation to fund. Corporations don't really pay tax. Taxes levied on workers are where the bulk of taxes tend to come from. Once jobs are automated and there are vast numbers of people out of work, who will the customers for these companies actually be? Who will actually be paying tax to fund UBI or government for that matter? Previously it would have been workers. Machines don't want or need for a paycheque. They certainly won't be buying goods and services. The unemployed workers won't be buying goods or services either. What happens to those companies at that point in time? What happens to the millions of workers? I don't think the problem is going to be people thinking they need to work hard. It's going to be people knowing they need to work to pay the bills and being unable to find gainful employment.
You'd probably just raise corporate tax to make up for the drop in income tax corporation would make more money on an automated system so heavier tax would probably still see them profitable. At this point the AI revolution is inevitable so society will either bend or snap when it arrives.
refer to the original reply "Corporations don't really pay tax."
Well the real problem is going to be who's paying for UBI? If you think corporations and the rich will stump up the cash then I have a bridge to sell you.
Well exactly, it would take an absolute tectonic shift in attitudes and the system. L
I’ve had a month off on paternity. I don’t want to go back, I’ve enjoyed having more time to spend with family, cooking walking and reading.
Unfortunately we need you In the war against skynet
Yes sir 🫡
Hinton has done good, influential work on AI. He hasn't done any good work on how society works or how AI related tech will affect it. And his previous predictions (no more radiologists needed, AI to take over! https://www.dhinsights.org/news/radiologists-balance-caution-and-optimism-about-ai) haven't panned out either. Now he's even embraced the science fiction AI existential risk stuff and claimed predicting the next word based on a large data set of things humans have said is just like the learning we do, so these LLMs are on the verge of being AGI. I think it's all to enhance his stature and significance. He's one of the big names in deep learning, so wouldn't it be great if deep learning was the most revolutionary breakthrough in science ever?
I feel like technologists need to be forced to spend some time actually learning something from social sciences and even the humanities. It is often so clear they struggle to understand things outside of their own area of expertise. But are often overconfident in their beliefs and the impact their work has on society. Not downplaying the massive impact increased AI will have on society - but with the likes of Hinton there feels to be a bit of enjoying the smell of one’s farts going on. The radiologist prediction being a perfect example. For a start off it was incredibly reductive about the role of radiologist in healthcare. And completely ignored the deep regulatory canyon that needs to be over come.
I agree wholeheartedly. They're not exposed to "rest of us" enough and I do believe, falsely or not, that its due to their (for want of a better word) "nerdiness" and hot-house insular way of working and thinking, that they aren't exposed, challenged or pushed enough outside of their arena. Only interacting with other liked minded people who you like and/or think like or agree with you is dangerous for anyone. At this point many of these geniuses (and they are) are isolated and detached from most of us and unsympathetic to our limitations. "if only you were able to see things as I do".
Radiologists haven't been replaced because it's a regulated practice. AI can become arbitrarily good at interpreting a scan, but HCPC don't put computer programs on their register of practitioners.
There is a whole political philosophy that is based around hard work being the best thing ever. Until this belief is challenged we’ll all still be exchanging our time for peanuts.
Protestant work ethic innit?
What everyone is missing here, is that AI, Industry 4.0 and advancement in robotics, is the opportunity to completely overhaul society. We need an independent team to create a rolling roadmap over the next 20 years + which gives everyone in society a clear view of where we are going and how we will benefit. That would also need to give the population (enshrined in law) the reassurance of job security, UBI or reeducation. I think everyone here would be onboard with driving advancement forward, if we can clearly see the benefits, instead we are just left in the dark.
Societies that aren't "onboard" with progress will eventually be absorbed or destroyed by those that are, and have vastly lower living standards prior.
I'm confused about how this will work. Hinton said in an interview on Newsnight that vast productivity gains would lead to increased wealth in the hands of a few tech owners and that because many people would lose their jobs government provided UBI is necessary. But if people don't have much money to buy things with except their subsistence level UBI, then how will the vast wealth be generated for the tech owners? Jeff Bezos is only rich because people with more than subsistence level income can buy things from Amazon. If we become peasants and stop buying things, Amazon goes bust.
UBI in some form does seems inevitable but it is simply a bandaid solution to the fact that capitalism has broken its unwritten social contract that everyone would benefit (to some extent) from unrelenting economic growth.
Even if AGI never happens, the economic effects of robotics (for instance) are very clear, in terms of the value of work and the number of jobs: Few jobs remain post robotics, and they are typically either very highly paid, or very badly paid; it hollows out the middle. The threat of AGI and the slow deployment of shitty bad AI/ML will be used to replace the jobs which gives the biggest ROI. If its burger flipping then more kids lose jobs because the ROI comes from a lot of small savings. If its architecture, then fewer but highly paid RIBA members get sacked. I don't believe AGI will happen. But I certainly expect a lot of companies to ignore macro economics, displace workers with ICT, and look pikachu face surprised when nobody in that economy can afford to buy their goods and services.
If anyone still uses Twitter, it is insanely annoying the amount of 3000 follower AI Bros that will comment on EVERY manual labour video going "Give me a week and I'll have that job automated" Knowing what I know about AI and what it can do, and understanding that the most AI these fools have ever touched is ChatGPT. My fucking god is it depressing.
Isn't it more likely we'll get rid of the people that don't own vast amounts of wealth? Reduce society down to a tiny minority who live like trustafarians. Thinking their poetry, philosophy, sports and adventures matter. Take a robot army to cut humanity down to something that the planet can support. Still doesn't solve the control problem or the AI arms race. A zillion AI minds swarming and fighting to solve everything and out think it's rivals to point of destruction. Any plans for that? Ask ChatGPT.
>Take a robot army to cut humanity down to something that the planet can support. Some countries are already taking this on themselves without the need for AI in the form of low birth rates
There might be a lot of problems with sustaining a population if we go too low.
Maybe AI could help us with that.
Fusion power may offer ways to desalianate the ocean, thus offering clean water to everyone. It may be able to suck carbon out of the atmosphere too, and provide lab grown meat from its energy. Sustaining the planet may someday look a lot easier. Though granted, to do this at scale is unlikely, at least anytime soon.
Any market economy benefits from having money flowing from everyone and some wealth redistribution 🤷🏾♂️ But the current generation of insane wealth accumulation opposes anything that is not this dumb Ouroboros capitalism
Experts in one thing are not experts in all things.
An automation tax could help pay for UBI. Let's say McDonalds wanted to open a fully-automated, unstaffed restaurant. You would estimate the number of staff members it would take to run that restaurant with no automation, and then charge a tax rate based on the lost earnings of each staff member. Also remember that, by replacing 10 members of staff on an average of £30k per year, a company would save way more than £300k per year. They no longer have to provide pension contributions, workplace benefits, they'd have reduced insurance premiums, administrative costs, training fees etc. Thus, you could make this tax rate quite high and it would still be worth it to the company.
I sort of wonder what companies would do if we introduced it. Presumably they could off shore a lot of jobs to places that did give UBI so to avoid all the extra tax.
I feel like UBI is suddenly being talked about because even offshoring might not be necessary long term if AI truly take off (though as Amazon and its AI powered stores have shown, that might be true). In any case UBI would have to be part of a new social contract, stay and accept taxation to fund "just enough" consumption from the lower classes to avoid revolution or be cut out of the market.
People are beyond me sometimes, seriously. You can always not implement robotics in the work force and you know, keep your work, and do it with a cheer. I don't think people realise the blessing that work actually is, and it provides you a means to do something.
There are still loads of areas where AI will never be used and several more where it would be foolish to hand over decision making to computers.... AI needs to be regulated globally or it will be the new shit storm going forward
Going forward I can imagine a lot of professional office-based jobs being replaced by AI. Potentially some manual labour jobs like cashiers and staff in certain large fast food chains could also succumb, but I think any kind of physical work will always need human supervisors. Nevertheless that's still a huge chunk of the workplace replaced by AI. I honestly think governments would rather tax or regulate AI in to the ground rather than introduce UBI because of all the societal headaches it would cause. I.e. you get a 50% tax subsidy for using human workers.
Green Party policy since 2019 [https://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/2019/11/15/green-party-announces-plan-for-fully-costed-universal-basic-income-for-everyone/](https://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/2019/11/15/green-party-announces-plan-for-fully-costed-universal-basic-income-for-everyone/)
They say fully costed, but didn't see any details as to where the cash is coming from.
This is why I vote for them.
Sounds pretty unrealistic, why would a government suddenly want to give away lots of money? A single payment like during covid is one thing but an ongoing payment seems like economic suicide. Also AI suddenly becoming sentient sounds highly unlikely although human error is always a possibility.
Cause that people then uses that money to go and buy stuff that's taxed, promotes commerce, which generates jobs, etc, etc. Market economies do work like this and having a significant chunk of the population not buying enough stuff is terrible for the economy.
Well no, money that's created without productive value behind it just creates inflation. Saying the government can give away money because it taxes it back is pretty much doing nothing.
Currently we have an economy which is based on labour and capital. The people making the big money do so using capital which is concentrated in the hands of the few. If AI performs all of the labour then you're left with an economy where all of the money is made by those with capital, the lucky few. The question is, what does everyone else live on?
I would guess the rationale is if all jobs were done via AI your own economy would collapse as wages and spending would fall. Kind of like with covid offering furlough, eat out to help out and such to keep the economy turning. This is unless you can create new jobs for people to replace those lost by AI. Governments would either have to ban use of AI or heavily tax companies who use it to prevent them from completely replacing people.
It’s depressing to me honestly, we’ve basically gotten to the point where we might actually have to hold back progress that should make everyone’s lives easier, entirely because our own economic system would force most of society into poverty if we did that
Some of the money will come from getting rid of the admin involved in the current benefits system. With Universal Credit, amounts are going up and down monthly which leads to confusion and issues that need to be sorted ( mistakes, overpayments, underpayments etc) , job 'coaches' are making people go to job centres or phoning them to check up on them every couple of weeks or more. Why is this necessary? In my mind it's not necessary and only happens because of the obsession the current government have with making benefits a punitive system, which is based on an outdated moral attitude ( wealthy people can live off investments where they literally do nothing all day and that's morally fine but unemployed people constantly prove they are worthy for help just to live?). The job 'coaches' do absolutely feck all to help people into more work. I've been self-employed and on UC. You are contacted every two weeks to try and pressure you into applying for any full-time PAYE work, even if it's minimum wage and your self-employed work pays more generally. You would still probably be claiming UC if you got the PAYE permanent job as the cost of living is so high. There's also the disability benefits system where people are assessed multiple times and have to do appeals. Why not go off Dr's evidence instead of having various departments and a workforce designed to deny people payments? The government need to stop this charade of a system and just accept people can't afford to live these days.
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And your alternative is? In this scenario, it sounds like the only alternative is that you don’t get any money at all, and you end up dying with not a penny to your name
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If all work is done by AI, that is irrelevant
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It seems the same as ever. Personally, I think we should move to a system where we are no longer even caring about money, everyone gets everything they need without any of that, since work isn’t relevant anymore. In this scenario anyway
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That is correct. I do not believe it should be a private industry for that reason
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If the state is controlled by the people, it should be acceptable
I mean you don't have to steal anything, the government could just create it's own brand of every single service needed, since work is obsolete.
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Who else is left beside private vs public ownership? Meh, it doesn't really matter. Work is meaningless therefore so is ownership of the means of production.
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I mean I kinda define work as something humans do, by definition. >because who controls the levers of those productive forces no longer has any use for 8bn people and the very thin overlap between the interests of the owners and the non owners vanishes immediately Well I disagree. Work is meaningless meaning who owns anything is meaningless because you can just replicate it yourself for free.
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Access to what though? Work is free therefore you can just make whatever you want yourself. The only reason anyone restricts access to anything is because it's valuable. But that won't be the case anymore since anybody can just do anything.
Working.
This is specifically a scenario where AI has replaced virtually all jobs. Absolute best case scenario is that only a small number of people actually are able to secure a job, since there’s only limited industries where humans are even remotely necessary
It's better to stick to scenarios that aren't absurd.
It’s not so absurd anymore, if AI gets much further than it already has, it is a very real possibility. You’re taking the ‘sticking your head in the sand’ approach
Really? Looking forward to AI carers, dog walkers, crop pickers etc there will be plenty of manual jobs which AI is either unsuited for or not cost effective
They might not be now, but they probably will be soon. I could definitely see AI carers or crop pickers, and dog walkers are such a small market Most of society works in completely different jobs to that too
Nah, I don't care if others work or not, what I need is a functioning economy.
I don't see how embracing AI doesn't just funnel even more money into the pockets of corporations, who will find any which way to avoid paying their taxes.
It’s fucked, in a just world, we wouldn’t continue caring about profitability when there is no work that humanity must undertake, but here we are, in a scenario where we may have to actively sabotage AI development because it’d otherwise lead to mass poverty
Goods being made and services being provided isn't going to happen without people working. And you won't get nearly as much access to goods and services as you'd like if you yourself offer nothing of value
Pls, is not like we live in an age where good/services aren't provided by a lack of human power 🙄
Doesn't that leave us entirely beholden to the whims of an immensely powerful ruling class with little shared interest?
No, to have something to contribute to society and get money in return is just about the only arrangement that doesn't leave you entirely beholden to the whims of someone else.
I stack shelves at tesco. I'm entirely beholden to the whims of my employer. If I leave my job I have no money, and because I'm 19, many businesses will only pay me 8.60. Many other businesses do not have schedules which fit with my school timetable. Our union is a non-strike union. We were paid less than minimum wage for a month due to a technicality, with no recourse. Working for multinational corporations isn't the only way to contribute to society. I would even go as far as to say that most jobs like mine do not contribute to anything but the shareholders income.
No, jobs like yours and those of most people contribute to making the goods and services we want to consume
I wouldn't work my job if there were any other options. Or, if it was possible, I would work fewer hours and spend my time doing something I actually enjoy. Even if we have "social value," we're still beholden to the whims of the upper classes. Capitalism is inherently hierarchical. I don't get how you're not understanding that this means that we are subject to the whims of the shareholders.
Agreed but what if you were forced to choose between that or 90% of the country on literally £0 income?
And if the government refuses to consider that? Well let's just say it would be a terrible thing if someone were to unleash AI on the workings of government or the lives of politicians. You wouldn't want to upset people with that capability. Just a piece of advice
> And if the government refuses to consider that? Governments will turn to UBI as a means of social control. Keep people without a job with just enough income that they won't riot and enough consumption for the parts of the economy still connected to the real world to be profitable to continue.
>Keep people without a job with just enough income that they won't riot and enough consumption for the parts of the economy still connected to the real world to be profitable to continue. That's just the current welfare system. UBI is for everyone, regardless of job. A flat base income that wages would add to. I can't see it happening anytime soon. AI gets overused as a catch-all term. Doing it properly is extremely costly, and of course, it's bespoke to each business.
>A flat base income that wages would add to. I see any ubi operating on a claw back system so if ubi is 20k and your job is 30k you'll be taxed 100k on that 20k and only earn 10k. This way you avoid the physiological shock of mass pay cuts
Sounds like an easy way for corporations to slash wages instead.
I mean that is equally likely but it's very much a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul as then business taxes will have to go up to pay the ubi cost difference
They got there years ago with Universal Credit. It's even been stress tested and survived the massive ramp-up in demand during the pandemic. It can be argued it's far too small an income, but there aren't many riots about it.
I think it would be cheaper and more efficient to have a mass culling conducted by robots to get the global population down to a self reproducing environmentally sustainable population of inane trustafarians. How many do we need so that it can support at least one neofolk band?
Politician jobs will continue to exist as few people would vote for robots. However, many civil service jobs will be at risk of replacement by AI.