AI 'godfather' says universal basic income will be needed \ stacker news ~news

AI 'godfather' says universal basic income will be needed www.bbc.com/news/articles/cnd607ekl99o

469 sats \ 19 comments \ @ch0k1 19 May news

The computer scientist regarded as the “godfather of artificial intelligence” says the government will have to establish a universal basic income to deal with the impact of AI on inequality.

Professor Geoffrey Hinton told BBC Newsnight that a benefits reform giving fixed amounts of cash to every citizen would be needed because he was “very worried about AI taking lots of mundane jobs”.

view all related items

188 sats \ 10 replies \ @Undisciplined 19 May

Alternative Headline:

AI Godfather Doesn’t Understand Basic Economics

111 sats \ 1 reply \ @orthwyrm 19 May

a good example of how expertise in one domain does not translate to expertise in another.

when discussing technical subjects, certain phrases reveal that the other person is fundamentally confused and not really worth engaging with. for example, in bitcoin land such a phrase might be "intrinsic value", "blockchain technology" or "yield".

i think "ubi" is one of those trigger words for me when it comes to economics. it conveys an almost childlike naivete of how money and incentives work.

70 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 19 May

I think UBI is very interesting from an economic analysis standpoint, but saying it will be necessary is nonsense on stilts.

If he had said "AI might make a UBI feasible.", then I'd have a different reaction.

129 sats \ 7 replies \ @jgbtc 19 May

It's so stupid. If that worked we could have done it at any time. Mundane jobs have always existed, and technologic innovations always make them obsolete, and make a whole new generation of mundane jobs. This is basically the whole story of human civilization.

21 sats \ 3 replies \ @gmd 19 May

Happening a lot faster now over a much shorter time scale. Most new jobs created will also very quickly be better done by AI. Intelligence is being commoditized rapidly and the value of the human brainpower will rapidly deflate.

54 sats \ 2 replies \ @jgbtc 19 May

What matters is if it will work or not. Money is needed because of scarcity. Whatever AI makes abundant will be freely available. No money needed. Whatever is still scarce, because AI can't pronounce it, will be so valuable that no one will voluntarily trade it for something the government just hands out for free. In the absence of voluntary trade, forced redistribution will be used. No money needed.

33 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined 19 May

In the absence of voluntary trade, forced redistribution will be used. No money needed.

I'm not arguing that this won't happen, but I have yet to see a coherent argument for how forced redistribution is ever more economically efficient than market forces.

The flip side of your argument is that anything a person can do better than AI will fetch an enormous wage in terms of purchasing power.

75 sats \ 0 replies \ @jgbtc 19 May

I agree with both points. Forced redistribution is always a complete disaster, which is why UBI won't work. It's forced redistribution in disguise. But the use of money in that situation is a quaint bit of theater to make people think everything is normal. To your second point, the purchasing power will be far too enormous for any UBI trash they hand out.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @BenAllenG 19 May

Image having to be a full time captcha tester...

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 19 May

Oof. I would hope that could be gig work.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 19 May

Bingo

21 sats \ 3 replies \ @doubleplusgood23 19 May

Considering how much we spend on “entitlements”/“welfare” as it is I am interested in changing the system into something more sustainable.

It seems difficult to make the basic math work on UBI though. I’ve heard “negative income tax” is what people who understand economics call it.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @02bcd3eeb0 19 May

Isn't the point of it to replace all other welfare and entitlement systems? Everyone gets UBI and then the free market handles the rest, thus removing huge amounts of the state apparatus and its interference.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @doubleplusgood23 20 May

Yes but if you do even napkin math it gets huge pretty quickly. The poverty line for a family of two is 20,000. If the United States government supplied all of the citizens above 18, about 258 million people, it would cost $5.16 trillion dollars a year. The entire government budget was $6.13 trillion in 2023.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @02bcd3eeb0 20 May

Yeah, but its hard/impossible to figure out how large the higher order effects of getting the government out of direct interference in the economy would be. Stuff would be so much cheaper.

Also, if 20k is unaffordable, why not 10k to start.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coinsreporter 19 May

Can you propose what it should be like a basic Universal income if all work is done by AI in future?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @BitcoinAbhi 19 May

And how are they going to implement it. I don't think that governments want to even think about the seriousness of AI implications on humans. Once AI establishes itself in the world, we will be sentenced to strive for food as well.