What is needed to address both the timing uncertainty and the long-term financing issue of UBI with regards to the prospect of technological unemployment is a financing mechanism that scales with the growth of the machine economy. I will explore the strengths and weaknesses of some of the more popular suggestions to address this in future posts.
Seems like the starting point for anyone who’s thought seriously about exponential growth in AI labor. It’s certainly my starting point, and so I’d hoped that a post with this title would address this issue.
I’m guessing this didn’t get more upvotes because it sort of over-promised and under-delivered.
If you read until the end you will see why this was the right choice—at least based on the argument that it’s an insurance against technological unemployment.
I don’t want to read until the end to find out if you have any good ideas to deal with what is (to me, and an unknown fraction of LW readers) the obvious question.
I was warned to not write scientific articles that are “mystery stories”. If you have something worthwhile to say, put it in the abstract; then again in a little more detail in the introduction; then again in more depth in the body of the article.
Don’t string the audience along or expect them to read a whole piece on a vague promise. Even if it’s mostly payed off, they won’t appreciate the mystery story- unless you’re a Nobel prize winner and they’re excited to read anything you write, in which case, a mystery story can be great.
I upvoted just because I think anyone doing this type of thinking and writing about post-AGI economic solutions should be encouraged. I’m writing this to say why this high-effort piece didn’t get more upvotes. I do hope you’ll put as much effort into your next piece.
I look forward to your next piece, in which you offer actual ideas for the problem at hand!
Most of the people I’ve read and heard talking about UBI really mean something like minimum income or negative income tax. So talking about the distinction is details and terminology. Most people with half a thought on the matter don’t really intend to pay the rich as much as the poor during the transition period when some people still have jobs or income.
The big question is: how can we tax AI based income enough to pay enough in minimum income to roughly make up for the vast amount of lost jobs once AI labor starts really taking off on the exponential? We should expect large unemployment rapidly scaling toward majority unemployment, happening rather soon one after the other. Check out progress in humanoid robotics, and fit an exponential curve to it along with the one we’ve fitted to AI progress. Physical jobs will be lost close behind white-collar jobs.
Soon after, almost all jobs will be gone. The transition period is the important thing to get right.
I assume that’s what you’re addressing in the next post. If so, and you have either solutions or useful framings of the problem, I expect it to receive much more attention and upvotes.
I agree. I’m sort of on a learning curve on how to write for online audiences. Specifically switching from exploratory research to a short narrative style and this probably should have been a much shorter post. (in my defense I have cut a lot, incl. overview tables of all prominent UBI proposals, UBI trials, and some of the main discussion points around UBI impacts).
The fact that financing UBI by taxing labor is not future-proof may be too obvious for LW—I am not sure it has arrived everywhere—some prominent UBI advocates still suggest it as the default funding mechanism.
Yes, I am writing a whole series on the AGI economy, so in some sense this is just the prelude to explain why saying “money is the solution to people not having money” doesn’t solve the challenge of getting the money. Texts on everything from robot tax, to sovereign wealth funds, to windfall clause, to OECD/G20 tax treaty, to pension funds, to global commons management will follow
I agree with 2. that UBI not being future proof is not obvious everywhere, and not even to everyone on LW. For a different audience (professional economists?) I think this careful setup would be worthwhile.
I look forward to seeing your proposed solutions! Thanks for taking the feedback in the helpful spirit in which it was intended.
Okay, yes.
And, this is a lot of definitions and details.
Your conclusion,
Seems like the starting point for anyone who’s thought seriously about exponential growth in AI labor. It’s certainly my starting point, and so I’d hoped that a post with this title would address this issue.
I’m guessing this didn’t get more upvotes because it sort of over-promised and under-delivered.
I don’t want to read until the end to find out if you have any good ideas to deal with what is (to me, and an unknown fraction of LW readers) the obvious question.
I was warned to not write scientific articles that are “mystery stories”. If you have something worthwhile to say, put it in the abstract; then again in a little more detail in the introduction; then again in more depth in the body of the article.
Don’t string the audience along or expect them to read a whole piece on a vague promise. Even if it’s mostly payed off, they won’t appreciate the mystery story- unless you’re a Nobel prize winner and they’re excited to read anything you write, in which case, a mystery story can be great.
I upvoted just because I think anyone doing this type of thinking and writing about post-AGI economic solutions should be encouraged. I’m writing this to say why this high-effort piece didn’t get more upvotes. I do hope you’ll put as much effort into your next piece.
I look forward to your next piece, in which you offer actual ideas for the problem at hand!
Most of the people I’ve read and heard talking about UBI really mean something like minimum income or negative income tax. So talking about the distinction is details and terminology. Most people with half a thought on the matter don’t really intend to pay the rich as much as the poor during the transition period when some people still have jobs or income.
The big question is: how can we tax AI based income enough to pay enough in minimum income to roughly make up for the vast amount of lost jobs once AI labor starts really taking off on the exponential? We should expect large unemployment rapidly scaling toward majority unemployment, happening rather soon one after the other. Check out progress in humanoid robotics, and fit an exponential curve to it along with the one we’ve fitted to AI progress. Physical jobs will be lost close behind white-collar jobs.
Soon after, almost all jobs will be gone. The transition period is the important thing to get right.
I assume that’s what you’re addressing in the next post. If so, and you have either solutions or useful framings of the problem, I expect it to receive much more attention and upvotes.
Thanks for the feedback—appreciated!
I agree. I’m sort of on a learning curve on how to write for online audiences. Specifically switching from exploratory research to a short narrative style and this probably should have been a much shorter post. (in my defense I have cut a lot, incl. overview tables of all prominent UBI proposals, UBI trials, and some of the main discussion points around UBI impacts).
The fact that financing UBI by taxing labor is not future-proof may be too obvious for LW—I am not sure it has arrived everywhere—some prominent UBI advocates still suggest it as the default funding mechanism.
Yes, I am writing a whole series on the AGI economy, so in some sense this is just the prelude to explain why saying “money is the solution to people not having money” doesn’t solve the challenge of getting the money. Texts on everything from robot tax, to sovereign wealth funds, to windfall clause, to OECD/G20 tax treaty, to pension funds, to global commons management will follow
I agree with 2. that UBI not being future proof is not obvious everywhere, and not even to everyone on LW. For a different audience (professional economists?) I think this careful setup would be worthwhile.
I look forward to seeing your proposed solutions! Thanks for taking the feedback in the helpful spirit in which it was intended.