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Chance-Device | on: Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science
UBI probably is the positive outcome, though it may not seem like it to begin with. Initially it will likely be stigmatised and under-resourced, but as a larger proportion of people move out of work and onto UBI that stigma will drop and the resources should grow.

Eventually UBI will be the norm, and if the living standards of a person on UBI is as good as yours or mine today, that will be an enormous win for everyone. It’s like pensions, once these were only for the elderly poor, now they’re a right for everyone in most developed countries.

It’s also interesting that for most of human history leisure time was the point of life, and only in recent modernity has work come to be the meaning of someone’s existence.

UBI has to be commensurate with production being automated. That’s a big logistical problem, if you think building datacenters is a challenge try bringing about radical abundance, but even so it’s not insurmountable. It just needs to be taken on as project and not seen as an impossibility.

So much of this is not about what is possible so much as what people believe is possible. We can do anything if we try.

bubblemoth | parent
> Eventually UBI will be the norm

I see comments like this tossed around a lot, but what makes you say this? Don't you think its more likely that most people end up in poverty?

Chance-Device | root | parent
No, I think people will demand to not live in poverty. Capitalism allows people to escape poverty by personal effort. An AI future won’t allow it by any means other than collective effort, so that’s what we’ll do.
mekael | root | parent
That will entail an immense amount of violence to be undertaken by the working class against those in power, unless you think they'll gladly give up all of their ill gotten gains out of the goodness of their black little hearts.
orangecat | root | parent
In fact I don't think that rich people are cartoon villains who enjoy watching the poors starve. If AI leads to greatly increased productivity, then at existing tax rates there will be more than enough to provide good living conditions for people who can't find jobs.