Thinking is expensive. A lot of people try to avoid it for that reason.
With UBI it won't be expensive anymore. So much of the economy is simply extractive, most people's jobs are really already highly algorithmic and involve much less "thinking" than they think. Being able to sit around and think has often been a historical luxury - of the elite or those lucky enough to be subsidized by them. I suppose the common (as they all were) man of prehistory also had more time to think, which was doubtless the germ of humanity's religious and speculative impulses. But they also had to contend with a brutal world where death was around every corner.
The economy doesn't want you to think. Knowledge workers really have far too high an opinion of themselves in this regard. Your "thinking" was merely more instrumentally useful than the alternatives. Most of us have done very well while inventing nothing. But an even better day dawns.
When humans don't have to rely on their own labor to survive, more humans will think. The opportunity to afford to indulge your curiosity as if you were among the wealthy and privileged. A society that can afford the Enlightenment and its myriad avenues at scale. What else will there be to do?
History teaches us changes for the good only happen after changes for the worse percolate deeply enough through the system. The idea that there will be hard times ahead is therefore not incompatible with my view at all, rather it is taken as a given.
Personally, I think the chances of most humanity surviving to the next century are already pretty slim (AI only marginally increases the chances of the worst case here imo). Hitler was not that far from a nuclear weapon. Our collective capacity for terror and self-destruction has only increased since 1945, while the lessons that have held the world together since increasingly fade. I have found it amusing to note that the demonization of AI has come with an accompanying valorization of human judgment as if all the evils of the world have heretofore not been the proud acts of some human somewhere, often with throngs of fellow humans in support.
Whereas, AI increasingly offers a chance that the best case (UBI, human survival through the next century), however unlikely in totality, is still far more likely than without it.
You are not incorrect. I am merely endeavoring to be optimistic. If only for the self-interested reason that I need to be able to sleep.
It helps to be optimistic I think, even if accompanied with a wry acknowledgement of futility. The future has always been frightening.
I wish you good fortune in the wars to come.
Where do you get that from? History teaches us that only when changes for the worse are so severe that the elites' heads start rolling, will change for good come.
> The idea that there will be hard times ahead is therefore not incompatible with my view at all, rather it is taken as a given.
It's a tautology, hence useless: there will be hard times ahead, followed by good times is always a tautology. What we're concerned about is if the hard times last 10 years or 10000 years.
After all saying "the idea that there will be hard times ahead" is not incompatible with your view, and is also not incompatible with the view "the idea that there will be good times ahead".
Where did you hear this? Hitler wasn't anywhere close to a nuclear weapon, Nazi Germany lacked both the necessary theoretical nuances and industrial capacity to create nuclear weapons. Even if they magically had made one, they lacked a credible delivery system for it which is its own enormous can of worms especially in the early 1940s.
Even Britain which did have good theoretical foundations and even a headstart on the American programme was obliged to merge its efforts with the Manhattan Project because it lacked the resources to do it so quickly alone. The largest empire on the planet at that point couldn't fight the Second World War at home and develop the bomb fast enough to be relevant, the Nazis had no chance.
Not without a lot of bloodshed and public beheadings, if history is any indication about changes benefiting the labour class.
UBI is pure fantasy, tantamount to the rapture for AI bros.
Also don't forget nearly every developed country has a progressive tax system and other benefits. You would flatten that when adopting UBI.
>And $10k is not going to allow anyone to retire.
You would be surprised how little some people get by on.
>UBI is pure fantasy, tantamount to the rapture for AI bros.
I don't think the AI bros give a shit about the average person. They mention UBI because it diverts the conversation away from the impact of their technology.
Straw man? What about providing a concrete number is a straw man. You can wax nebulously about the benefits of UBIs as much as you want, but the economics are shaky for a population of this size.
Right. I'm sure that the real reason for extracting more profits at the expense of labour is to give it back to people without getting any labour in return.
That makes perfect sense.
/s