AI & UBI

A couple of trials of Universal Basic Income are taking place in the UK, in a very small way. The right wing is coming out with the usual drivel about people being paid to stay at home, something about widescreen TVs (despite it being impossible to buy anything else) and the rest of us in work paying for them.

It won't be long before AI takes a helluva lot of people out of the workforce. This will be a huge shock to the economy and the labour market, a situation that's being ignored by strategic policy makers, which is hardly surprising when planning forward generally means no more than 5 years ahead. Having millions of unemployed people brings with it a risk of insurrection, thus burying one's head in the sand is not an option.

Possible solutions? Tax people and companies on the basis of the ratio of profit to number of employees. For example, a company making £2m profit with 100 employees has a ratio of 0.005%; one making the same profit but employing only one person has a ratio of 0.00005%. 

Those employing AI and laying off people would pay an additional tax based on this ratio - the lower the ratio, the higher the tax. Those having great wealth and living off the proceeds, but employing no people at all, would also be taxed - which would, in effect, make it a wealth tax, which is exactly what some are suggesting needs to be implemented to go some way to level up inequality, which grows every year.

The above could, depending on levels of such a tax and how much it could generate, fund a Universal Basic Income and keep the large number of unemployed off the streets, thus buying off a revolution.

Would it make the UK less competitive? Yes, but other countries would also have to implement something similar, or risk revolution. It could even make the country more competitive.

Then there's the fact that the UBI would be spent wisely on necessities - the things that make the economy work, such as widescreen TVs and fags - the very things produced by robots and AI. Some would undoubtedly  use it to fund a university place, enabling them to study for degrees in occupations where AI cannot penetrate and thus give the country a competitive advantage in its workforce skills.

Thinking about the areas where AI cannot penetrate - would it perhaps lead to an explosion in the Arts? However, that said, AI is forecast to make inroads into the Arts by way of computational creativity. There again, the Arts are losing money and therefore there may not be the driver to push AI into creativity. 

If the right wing think UBI leads to a life of ease (and 50 inch widescreen TVs), then perhaps they should try it (or invest in widescreen TVs). I somehow doubt they would. And why should they worry about how people spend their money, so long as it's spent and circulates in the economy, rather than being put in offshore accounts to avoid tax.

The question is whether the vested interests that hold the reins of power, be that overtly or by proxy, would allow it to happen? If they don't, they risk decimation in a revolution by the New Luddites.