Elon Musk: Automation Will Force Universal Basic Income

geek.com

4 pointssr24 comments

I simply don't see Donald Trump, Michael Pence, Mitch McConnell or Paul Ryan getting on board with the idea of Universal Basic Income. It looks too much like welfare and goes against their sensibilities that people must work for an income. UBI will never gain traction in the United States so long as these men or men of their ilk are wielding power.

> It looks too much like welfare

It's unconditional income though, in the sense that you are entitled to it regardless of your circumstances. To put it in the same class as welfare is naive, I think. It's not 'something for nothing' in the sense of a free handout. It's infact more than that. Think of it as a safety valve in the face of western hyper-capitalism gone awry.

I don't disagree with you, I just don't think the Republican leaders are going to see it that way. In their worldview capitalism is the answer to all economic problems and so it's going to be very difficult for them to see capitalism as being the source of problems. They're going to be very suspicious of anyone suggesting there's problems with capitalism and view it as some sort of socialist plot. It's not obvious to me how we're going to get them to see things differently.

I would think management would be much easier to automate than your average service job. Service jobs require physical resources, management is pure AI.

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