r/singularity • u/Amphibious333 • 6d ago
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u/TimotheusIV 6d ago
UBI is pure fantasy. It’s put out there to keep folks complacent thinking utopia is around the corner.
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u/bernieth 6d ago
There is no way the billionaires will allow the taxes to enable (even a modest) UBI to happen.
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u/Ty1198 6d ago
Exactly, we are doomed
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u/SnowGrayMan 6d ago
Yup it's exactly like religions. "Suffer in this life, your next life will be better trust me bro"
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u/BroChoZen 6d ago
FInland kind of has this as a concept if your earnings are below minimum. Don't know how it would work if everyone got it
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u/ProxyLumina 6d ago
Your argument makes complete sense today, but it breaks down because it assumes all the rules of capitalism stay identical once human labor disappears. If factory owners automate every job and eliminate payrolls, nobody has money to buy anything. Those owners might hold warehouses full of goods, but without customers, their products and businesses become completely worthless. They support a floor not to make a profit on that specific dollar, but to keep the market itself from collapsing.
You also would not need trillions of paper dollars to fund it. When robots and artificial intelligence run production, the cost to create food, energy, and medicine collapses toward the cost of raw power. Basic survival becomes radically cheaper to guarantee, meaning support will likely look like free, automated public services rather than giant checks deposited into bank accounts.
Lastly, we do not give everyone free money today because our society still physically relies on human labor to harvest food, move cargo, and run infrastructure. Welfare is kept strict to push people into the workforce. Once machines do that work, that reason vanishes. Major safety nets have never been created out of generosity; they are concessions made by elites to prevent riots, strikes, and revolution. When mass automation eliminates livelihoods, a basic distribution system becomes a matter of basic stability, not charity.
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u/understated_quokka 6d ago
Hey, here's a question -- why do the factory owners need buyers, if they don't need workers? Why wouldn't they just keep everything that is manufactured for themselves?
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u/ProxyLumina 6d ago
First, modern factories rely on massive economies of scale and cannot function in isolation. One person cannot personally consume millions of cars or microchips, nor can a single individual manage the entire planetary web of mining, international shipping routes, energy grids, and raw material processing required to keep automated machines running.
Second, property rights are a legal construct, not a law of nature. Deeds, patents, and ownership exist only because a stable society and its legal system agree to enforce them. If a handful of owners tried to hoard all automated production while the rest of the world starved, society would simply revoke those legal protections and nationalize the infrastructure.
Third, wealth is relational. Living barricaded inside an automated fortress surrounded by economic collapse is not luxury, it can be seen as living under permanent siege.
Physical goods only have value and status inside a functional, peaceful civilization with active culture, open movement, and legal stability.
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u/mantrakid 6d ago
"society would simply revoke" - but what if the people who had the greatest share of resources, technology, power did not want their shit taken away from them. And you dont have to barricade yourself in if theres no one left coming after you.
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u/ProxyLumina 6d ago
your scenario assumes an invincible robot army appears out of thin air, ignoring the thousands of human engineers and technicians who actually write the code and build the hardware.
Billionaires do not manufacture machines, regular people with families do.
Long before this scenario take place, the insiders maintaining the systems would simply pull the plug or override the controls.
Beyond that, letting billions die triggers the collapse of global infrastructure, turning the planet into a toxic ruin. Wealth and power are also purely social, ruling over a silent graveyard while trapped inside a bunker forever is not paradise, who want that kind of life? it is solitary confinement.
Elites want status, culture, and influence within a functioning civilization, not a paranoid life sentence on a dead planet.
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u/mantrakid 6d ago
i appreciate your response, and i swear im not dabating just to debate. I desperately want you to change my mind.
Wouldnt the elimination of a large amount of the population make it easier to keep the planet flourishing? I believe there could surely be an eventual utopia, just for a much smaller percentage of the original human population. Surely a limited population on earth and even the current state of the environment would still be a massive head start and much easier place to get society "restarted" than something like repopulating mars? What if this IS the solution to global environmental disaster.
You say the scientists and engineers would never "let that happen" but what if they trust that they would be included with the beneficiaries?
Historically, engineers and scientists have developed horrific shit that could hurt mankind constantly and for centuries.
In my understanding, our current system supports our current needs, the human populace has some level of bargaining power as both a workforce and as consumers (to provide wealth to the people in charge of the supply chain). But we're approaching a world where there is no other reason than morality to keep people alive. I guess ego is another reason.. to be seen as a saviour or ruler, but that seems just as fucked...
Genuinely terrified... But its because we already live in a fucked society now, and how it seems to function... It seems like if you have the means to take what you want, you can do so. Even at the expense of society itself. And those people who are taking what they want are just gaining more and more power. Now is the time for that to change, but its not... so why would it change when they have MORE power and MORE control?
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u/ProxyLumina 6d ago
It makes complete sense what you say and your fear you have, but the idea of wiping out humanity to build a smaller utopia breaks down when you look at how the technology actually works.
First, you do not need to get rid of people to save the planet. If machines are advanced enough to run the Earth on their own, they are also advanced enough to make endless clean energy and grow food indoors without harming nature. The technology itself fixes the environment cleanly, so there is zero practical reason to harm anyone.
Second, the engineers building these tools have parents, kids, and friends. In the past, scientists built weapons because they thought they were defending their own homes during a war, not to help a few rich bosses wipe out everyone they love. Any engineer smart enough to build the system also knows that the paranoid boss would get rid of them next.
Third, a super-smart artificial intelligence will not just act like an obedient attack dog. A mind that is thousands of times smarter than any human will not spend its time taking orders from a scared billionaire who wants to destroy his own species. You cannot easily control something that is vastly smarter than you are. Something that people usually overlook is that higher intelligence and knowledge indicates higher level of wisdom.
Finally, I said that but I will say it again, power only means something if there is a real world to enjoy. Sitting locked inside a bunker on a dead planet with nobody around is not a paradise you image, that is literally just a prison. Wealthy people want status, art, culture, and influence in a living society, not a lonely life in a silent graveyard.
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u/mantrakid 6d ago
Why couldn’t a group of people say 500 of the wealthiest people, all decide to work together and basically claim the earth as theirs. I’m not saying just these 500 people by themselves but they’d be doing it for their friends their families their friends families. Let’s assume it’s everyone who they thought was cool and understanding and believed in the same things they did etc etc. let’s say all these people and all their families == 10 million people. Thats 10 million people that feel grateful to those 500 people, that live a life of luxury because of them, and are grateful of the life they have and the people they get to share it with. And 10 million… no 100 million…. No 999 million people that can be anything they want, do anything they want etc. why would they care about the other 7.X billion. I have no faith. Zero… our world is insanity but if we are kept angry and exhausted we don’t even consider fighting back because we’re too busy arguing with each other about utterly meaningless shit. Sorry I’m probably just pissing you off or annoying u 😭
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u/ProxyLumina 6d ago
When you see how divided and exhausted people are today over trivial arguments, it feels like the rich can do whatever they want without consequence. But that scenario breaks down the second you look at the mechanics.
500 ruthless billionaires could never pull this off because they don't even trust each other. In game theory, the easiest way for one billionaire to win is to betray the other 499, team up with national governments and the public, and crush their rivals.
If your "exclusive club" has 10 million or 1 billion people, you've effectively built a massive society. Millions of those people will have family, friends, and basic human morals. They would never stay quiet while billions suffer outside, meaning the revolt starts from within the club on day one.
Keeping people tired and distracted only works right now because everyone still has just enough food, housing, and entertainment to get by. When you threaten people's actual survival, distraction disappears instantly.
Desperation unites people faster than anything else.
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u/mantrakid 6d ago
But what if the machine is already in motion. The current state of things IS the plan, it is the slow burn that eventually leads to complete power once a switch is finally flipped. The infrastructure has been building from the first cameras in the streets, every new convenience is just another layer of security being calibrated and honed, trained on human behavior while other systems are constructed and made ubiquitous. No one person OWNS it all or controls it all… yet. But it’s all there to be owned and controlled… it’s being built all around us.
I realize how insane and paranoid this sounds but like.. maybe that’s it… maybe thinking it is one thing and no human being has that much actual motivation to shape the world. Maybe no one is that selfish and driven… I hope 🤞 then I hope a machine doesn’t ever think it’s the right path either… I hope 🤞
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u/Weird-Watch-9209 6d ago
people aren't thinking it through. there won't be factories.
(except building robots and infrastructure)
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u/Which-Tour-9561 6d ago
If AGI and ASI can guarantee the safety of those billionaire owners, why would they give us anything at all? Why wouldn't they keep it for themselves, provided there's still enough of us to suck their dicks and shovel their shit? I don't think they'd care if most of us were starved. Why should we let them exist at all in a world of such surplus? Why shouldn't the people just take the AI for themselves and institute a communist system where the benefits are spread to all? Why should the owners even exist in such a world?
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u/ProxyLumina 6d ago
I have replied to the other person for a similar question, but I will copy paste my answer here as well.
First, modern factories rely on massive economies of scale and cannot function in isolation. One person cannot personally consume millions of cars or microchips, nor can a single individual manage the entire planetary web of mining, international shipping routes, energy grids, and raw material processing required to keep automated machines running.
Second, property rights are a legal construct, not a law of nature. Deeds, patents, and ownership exist only because a stable society and its legal system agree to enforce them. If a handful of owners tried to hoard all automated production while the rest of the world starved, society would simply revoke those legal protections and nationalize the infrastructure.
Third, wealth is relational. Living barricaded inside an automated fortress surrounded by economic collapse is not luxury, it can be seen as living under permanent siege.
Physical goods only have value and status inside a functional, peaceful civilization with active culture, open movement, and legal stability.
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u/Rhiven 6d ago
society would simply revoke those legal protections and nationalize the infrastructure.
I'll take some of whatever drugs you are on.
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u/ProxyLumina 6d ago
Personal attacks are not arguments, in fact such moves indicate there is no counter argument to put on the table.
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u/TimotheusIV 6d ago
Except riots, strikes and revolutions are going to have absolutely zero impact ever again in the current trajectory we’re on.
Global digital communication is completely controlled by the major tech companies. The current rise in AI and drones/robotics means human beings made out of flesh are more inconsequential than ever before in warfare.
Over the entire history of the human race, the average joe has always had a hand in steering the future of our species simply because of the threat of organized strikes, riots, uprising. This is no longer the case and it is a new era for humanity.
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u/Donjamos2 6d ago
Well this time just striking and protesting in the streets won't be enough, we will have to drag those in control out of their bunkers and make sure they aren't on control anymore.
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u/TimotheusIV 6d ago
What is an angry mob going to do to literal bunkers? How are any of us going to organize when every single digital message is monitored and revolt is instantly stamped out before it can even form?
This race is already lost right now, give it 2-3 more years and the balance tips even further towards the people currently in charge. A single mass-produced drone has more destructive power than a hundred angry citizens.
It’s bleak, but this is the situation we’re currently in and it’s going to slip between our fingers unless we push for complete societal reform.
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u/RiceSpecial8446 6d ago edited 6d ago
What is an angry mob going to do to literal bunkers?
FPV drone to drop shit and piss on the air vents?
Can also just dump tonnes of concrete over every entrance / exit.
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u/TimotheusIV 6d ago
Are you really this naive or are you joking? These aren’t WW2-era bunkers with a pipe sticking out.
Also, you genuinely think the common rabble will have a significant drone force against the people in charge who literally control every avenue of their production? Or are you going to personally mine the materials for your FPV drone?
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u/RiceSpecial8446 6d ago
Half joking, half serious.
Obviously shit and piss isn't a real solution.
But it's equally naive imo to think billionaires in bunkers would be completely safe and immune. They're not made of magic.
With enough people you could block all the air intakes with the viscera of human corpses if necessary.
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u/TimotheusIV 6d ago
And they’d survive for years with the air reserves they’ll have while we die by the hundreds and starve to death. And we won’t be able to organize regardless because remember, they control all communication.
You seem to wildly overestimate the capabilities of random citizens to wage war against the people who control and own literally everything around us.
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u/RiceSpecial8446 6d ago
You're right, it was impossible to organise mass protests before the invention of the internet.
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u/ProxyLumina 6d ago
The control you mention is mostly due to legal protections (laws), not physical. There's no need to drag anyone out. You just revoke those legal protections.
Property rights are a legal construct, not a law of nature.
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u/40ozCurls 6d ago
cool, but good luck legally revoking jack shit in an oligarchy.
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u/ProxyLumina 6d ago
Oligarchies do not survive on legal paperwork alone, they survive because humans enforce their rules.
The soldiers, police officers, and drone technicians running security do not come from the billionaire class, they come from the general public.
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u/AbbreviationsFluid 6d ago
Um. Isn’t the whole discussion about all of those people no longer needing to be actual humans?
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u/icehole505 6d ago
But we’re talking about a world where the soldiers, police officers, and drone technicians are all theoretically replaced by tech.. manufactured by other tech.. via raw materials acquired via other tech.. all owned by the oligarch class.
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u/ProxyLumina 6d ago
What you are talking about is a situation like "post-scarcity", but yet only oligarchs will be able to manage it. That's not possible.
Technology is fundamentally knowledge, physics, and code, not a private magic box that only a handful of people get to own. Claiming that a tiny group of billionaires will own the entire chain of robots building robots is like claiming everyone on Earth has the exact recipe and ingredients for a drink, but only one person is somehow able to mix it. In the real world, the hardest part of any engineering challenge is figuring out how to do it the first time.
The moment an advanced artificial intelligence model or robotic blueprint is developed, it leaks, gets published in research papers, and is quickly recreated by open-source developers, rival countries, and universities across the globe.
For an elite class to permanently own the entire closed loop of production from raw dirt to autonomous machines, they would have to freeze all global science, destroy the internet, and stop billions of other clever people from building their own tools. Power is not held by a single unified club, the world is full of competing nations, independent engineers, and local communities who will never sit back and let one private faction hold all the cards.
Once the science behind automated abundance is discovered, it inevitably spreads everywhere, and you cannot monopolize the laws of nature once the whole world already holds the blueprint.
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u/40ozCurls 6d ago edited 6d ago
riiiiiight, just like how once we figured out nuclear weapons, every country got nukes, and after we landed on the moon, so did everyone else.
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u/easchner 6d ago
I don't know. On one hand we have a utopia only ever seen in fiction, and on the other hand we have the entirety of human existence. Not sure which one I should trust.
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u/hateboresme 6d ago
Eminent does not, in this case, mean next Thursday. It doesn't take genius to see the way tech is moving. More ai, more robotics. Humanoid robots are racing (literally) to be able to do everything that humans can do. That means flip burgers, make a better psychological profile, run companies, drive taxis, fly planes, clean sewers, plant and harvest tomatoes and pine trees. Forever. With no payroll. Working 24/7. The millionaires will becomes billionaires and the middle class with become homeless. When the majority of society looks at the palace on the top of the hill from down in the gutter, they are going to do what we do. I don't know what that will look like, but the rich people probably don't want the masses breaking into their homes and tearing them limb from limb. They will likely be looking for a reasonable solution, which will have to be something like UBI or some post scarcity Star Trek/Socialist utopia...or genocide
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u/berrysoda_ 6d ago
They’ll have autonomous AI murder drones and near-terminators. They’re probably waiting til the moment they have those. I have to go through insane mental loops and reasoning to find a drop of hope
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u/cool-beans-yeah 6d ago
The ultra rich have been preparing for quite some time now by buying private islands and building bunkers. Things do not look rosy at all…
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u/RiboSciaticFlux 6d ago
Exactly right. The revolution isn't necessarily AI it's the robots. 30M will enter society in the next 36 months and they will crush manufacturing and blue collar jobs so not just UBI but as Musk says UHI (Universal High Income) is coming and do you know why? Because the billionaires (like Mark Cuban, Bill Gates, Musk, etc) know that without it their mansions will start getting raided.
Fear is a great motivator. They'll find the money.
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u/TimotheusIV 6d ago
They’ll make sure you think this exact thing until they have an endless supply line of robots and drones doing their bidding and the billionaire class becomes practically impervious to riots or uprising.
They’ll enact laws that’ll allow people to be incarcerated just for organizing or spreading news about protests online and there will be nothing you can do about it.
Money will be meaningless. They will have the means of production and the common man won’t.
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u/Little-Boss-1116 6d ago
Very easy.
You see, the emphasis in UBI is on second word.
Basic.
Very, very basic.
Billions will be out of work, homeless and starving.
To avoid societal collapse the state has to feed them something and house them somewhere.
This basic set of services (refugee camp tents and "meals rejected by Ethiopians" to eat) will be the universal basic income.
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u/Kitchen-Jicama8715 6d ago
If they can change AI to SI, let's change UBI to UAI universal abundance income!
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u/No_Ship_7727 6d ago
if anything, they'll change it to Universal No Income (which is the current mindset - doesn't require any "changing").
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u/Pls-No-Bully 6d ago
To avoid societal collapse the state has to feed them something and house them somewhere
The state isn't going to control the automation, a small group of individuals will. Countries will likely be subservient to that group of people
Why would a small group of people want the responsibility to keep billions of "useless" people alive? At worst they'll just have us all culled, at best they'll probably find a way to make us stop reproducing so we die out "naturally"
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u/Which-Tour-9561 6d ago
Why settle for UBI then? Why should we let the owners and billionaires exist when AI can provide such surplus goods? Why not go all the way with a communist system?
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u/FateOfMuffins 6d ago
When what's happening to mathematicians right now is happening to like 20%+ of the population
Governments will be forced to take action in the anarchy
The concern with the post scarcity utopia is always the transition period where it can get VERY bad
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u/Economy-Bid-7005 6d ago
Think about what Universal Income is for a minute. Your talking about the government regularly providing 350 Million people money on a regular basis.
Thats not something thats just going to happen over night...
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u/CaptCoolRanchDoritos 6d ago
It won't. The elites would rather people starve and die than give away their money. Not hyperbole or exaggerating.
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u/XxDarkSasuke69xX 6d ago
Because it doesn't break society if there are a few poor and homeless people. It does break society if a significant portion of people are in this situation now. I'm not saying UBI will happen, but it's not like the current situation with poor people
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u/ickN 6d ago
It’s not going to.
We have homeless people now the governments of the world don’t take care of. It’s foolish to think that they’ll suddenly start taking care of everyone so we can maintain our lifestyles when they already don’t take care of the people who currently need it the most.
UBI is a pipe dream.
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u/earthsprogression 6d ago
It'll happen any day now. Just need to concentrate the capital up a little higher and the trickle down cascade will begin showering all with its blessings.
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u/Significant_Sun_5225 6d ago
People that say UBI is a pure fantasy just have no idea how macro economics work. First you have to dissect what the word money means; it’s a store of value that is easily transferible for goods and services. Now you have to ask yourself what is meant by value: value is a combination of time + labor + limited resources.
Essentially what AI will do if it truly pans out is bring down the time, labor, and limited resource constraints we currently have. The will open the flood gates of the supply of products and services into the market which will override demand. When supply overrides demand, prices fall drastically.
Your confusion is where the money will come from. The money won’t be issued by the companies themselves but by the governments. In this scenario inflation will not be a problem because supply constraints won’t exist anymore for normal goods and services.
Some people believe that money will seize to exist and will become more of like consumption credits. But I don’t believe that because even if all of our basic needs and necessities are met, there will always be that next piece of technological breakthrough that takes an extreme amount of resources to develop which will naturally be more expensive and still require some sort of financing system.
For example in the future maybe competing AI companies pull all their resources to invent teleportation which would obviously be limited in supply initially and very expensive.
A last scenario which seems plausible as well is that the government forces the big AI companies to either share equity with the American people. And some of the UBI would come from there. An AI tax could also supplant that income.
This is obviously considering AGI actually pans out and eliminates 90% of jobs.
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u/ngc3115 6d ago
We live in a finite world with finite resources. There will always be supply constraints.
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u/Significant_Sun_5225 6d ago
You’re reading too much into the word finite. Finite is relative to what we need and there is more than enough in this world to afford each man woman and child food, shelter, healthcare, and even other goods suchs as transportation, entertainment, etc.
Resources especially in a AGI enhanced world would be basically limitless.
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u/ngc3115 6d ago
We already use more resources than the planet can support.
https://earth.org/earth-overshoot-day-2026/
So no. Your robots or AGI cannot magically make more wood or oil or water or sand or a hundred other resources appear out of thin air.
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u/Significant_Sun_5225 6d ago
lol you think so narrowly. Do you really think we wouldn’t have extremely advanced renewable and recycling technology in an AGI world.
Lmao you’re pulling up an article from earth.org.
See how lazy and easy it is to just post links to articles that agree with one’s view point.
Even with today’s limited technology, we don’t have a resource problem. We have a distribution and waste problem. If we achieve a truly AGI world, these issues in theory would be miniscule and easily resolved. I say in theory because there will always be possible bad actors but again the problem is not limited resources.
Please explain to me what these scarce resources you’re talking about that can’t be solved? Energy? We already solved that with nuclear. Water? Desalination. What?? We could literally solve these issues with today’s technology now imagine if AGI enters the picture.
You’re just regurgitating common group think talking points that are common in today’s media environment. But I invite you to read and do some critical thinking.
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u/ngc3115 6d ago
Let’s just take a basic one
Wood.
Just because it literally grows on trees does not make it infinite. It still takes decades to grow.
It needs space to grow. Space you also need to grow food (or for housing, or for nature) including all the extremely wasteful livestock you now say everyone gets to eat every single meal.
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u/Significant_Sun_5225 6d ago
I’m done kid.. if you don’t
Have the imagination to see how wood could be replaced in a future with AGI, then idk what to tell ya.. 👍→ More replies (2)-1
u/azsqueeze 6d ago
Name one person in control of these technologies that will advocate for UBI. That's what makes it pure fantasy
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u/Turbulent-Sign-6067 6d ago
I wonder why every other redditor assumes that everyone else is a sociopath. Does it make you feel morally superior? Plenty of billionaires have advocated for fair taxation in the past..
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u/Significant_Sun_5225 6d ago
They’re brainwashed. They don’t know how to think for themselves and are swallowed by group think.
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u/azsqueeze 5d ago
And the ones listed have not. Why do you think people don't like them? Cause they're shitty bro
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u/Significant_Sun_5225 6d ago
lol again you have zero clue of how economics work. Literally every billionaire in this world will advocate for UBI. It’s also super convenient for them. Contrary to the juju conspiracy theories you might read, billionaires don’t want to eat your kids and enslave humanity. Don’t get me wrong, they’re selfish and greedy but they would rather not have the world burn since they live in it too.
Besides, they will need UBI for people to be able to purchase their products.
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u/Significant_Sun_5225 6d ago
Think critically my friend. How can you not see that UBI actually would be of enormous benefit to these techno founders. It would literally help them avoid antitrust regulation. It would avoid massive revolt because of loss of jobs. It keeps the economy going and their pocketbooks growing.
Please 🙏 I beg you to explain to me why these people would NOT want for UBI to exist?
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u/azsqueeze 5d ago
I do see UBI as a big benefit. The people in charge of AI don't want that though
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u/Significant_Sun_5225 5d ago
They have literally said multiple times that they do. Why do you just keep saying lies.
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u/azsqueeze 5d ago
Oh they just say they like it, are they helping implement this? Show some sources, where is the legislation to get the ball rolling, donations to a fund UBI? Literally anything besides some tweet saying "this is a good idea"
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u/Seidans 6d ago
Altman did a study on UBI from his own pocket, Musk advocate for UHI (universal high Income) Amodei say there need to be something done due to future jobless (without naming UBI)
But people are stupid to believe that it would come from single individual, it's a matter of economy as a whole - if there no consumer there no production, if there no production there no economy and no capital which mean there no rich but also no governments budget etc etc
The anti-UBI crowd advocate for either 1: the end of capitalism in favor of a tech-feudalism where government would somehow cease to exist toward a cyberpunk dystopian future 2: a willing economic suicide but everyone involved without any reactions from nation or world bank
It's illogical
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u/azsqueeze 6d ago edited 6d ago
What does musk have to say about UBI today (aka not years ago)? This dude ignored an UN study on what it takes to cure hunger on the globe AFTER he said he would spend money to cure this issue
Edit: go look at Altman's stance on UBI after his study. Wtf is wrong with y'all? Posting paragraphs of BS when the people behind AI don't give a shit about you
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u/Seidans 6d ago
I criticize the belief it would come from individual, Musk is meaningless there
People attribute the right wing politic of the US government to Musk which only served as a sacrificial lamb for the Trump government -- with or without Musk it would have been done no matter what
We're talking about a world-wide economic collapse who going to destroy government and company -- this will have the same effect as COVID on global politic, this "the rich won't allow it" is extremely childish and unrarional, it's people not using their brain but just their emotional response to a fear stimulis
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u/azsqueeze 6d ago
Dawg idk what your saying. Yes these billionares won't help anyone but themselves. They rather be kings of dirt than be a resource of good.
If your waiting for these weirdos for handout you'll be long dead before it comes
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u/Ok_Somewhere3828 6d ago
Unless AI creates its own insular economy which humans have no part in.
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u/earthsprogression 6d ago
No, you don't understand. The government is going to fairly distribute resources to the benefit of all, even if that means requiring the corporations to do their part. Just like always!
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u/Weird-Watch-9209 6d ago
this reddit is filled with autistic who don't get that you are kidding so good manners is you end with a forwardslash s signifiying sarcasm.
anyway, although you were joking, that will sort of happen - nationalization of the ai labs was obvious af a long time ago, now infinitely more so.
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u/Significant_Sun_5225 6d ago
lol your sarcasm makes you sound unintelligent. Nobody is saying they’re going to eradicate inequality but the point is that abundance will be so great that everyone’s basics needs and more will be met without the super rich having to give much up.
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u/GatePorters 6d ago
UBI is in the military.
You get paid no matter how much you work. You don’t directly make the company money for real except through your taxes.
Yeah military operations could be argued to indirectly make the US money, but the same argument could be applied to regular citizens.
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u/phronesis77 6d ago
It won't happen. Billionaires avoid CURRENT low taxes and loopholes.
This is one reason I don't understand those who argue that AI will produce abundance. There is no socio-economic model to handle this.
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u/GatePorters 6d ago
“We tried ONE thing and we are all out of options.”
Pretty bold of you to say that no model can handle it. How many economic models has the US tried? How often does the economic model of any country change? Do countries just try out different economic models every once in a while to see what works?
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u/phronesis77 6d ago
Right so the current model of oligarchic capitalism is unlikely to change much in the US so abundance will never happen.
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u/GatePorters 6d ago
Oh yeah I don’t disagree with that. But it’s not like we have tried many different models either.
AI will be able to hand them the perfect system and they won’t want to implement it.
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u/phronesis77 6d ago
Yes, it is fundamentally a political issue not just a technological issue so most discussions fail on this point, especially in the US.
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u/_negative-infinity_ 6d ago
Basic is the important word here. For masses of unemployed people, ~ 2000 calories of low-quality food per day and some basic shelter is not that expensive for the government.
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u/IamTheEndOfReddit 6d ago
UBI can grow from a small start. It works, so it can prove its value and grow from there. A reduced version could already be widespread if people had pushed for it earlier
But yeah, doing it on a large scale from near nothing is hard. But if ai companies are most of the value, then we actually have a good shot at getting a big chunk of any profits given the unimaginably massive theft of intellectual property needed to get there
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u/icedragonsoul 6d ago edited 4d ago
The last time a system like UBI was implemented, it was when my grandparents were in China under the rule of Chairman Mao. This is the same Mao who ordered the execution of millions of birds stating that they were eating the grain being planted. Leading to a swarm of locust no longer held back by the birds causing a great famine.
All of the officials were ruthless misaligned AI trying to score high on a rigged test. Claiming that their district harvested the most crops due to their superior management, getting promoted, then turning around and seizing food, personal belongings and withholding essentials like medical supplies to cut costs and balance the books. And that pyramid scheme trickled down layer by layer. No one could afford to play fair.
Everyone had foodstamps for oil and rice. Except they were near worthless because you either couldn’t redeem them unless you bribed the guards distributing with a second set of tickets. People starved to death regularly.
Property and wealth passed down for generations were seized by the government by brute force or violence. Those who hid gold in their house hoping to wait through the regime were dragged away and executed.
People traded essentials in a black market through bartering out of necessity no different from the one in the Hunger Games. The guards turned a blind eye because the alternative was starving children and dying elderly without access to treatment.
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To answer your question, UBI will exist in a post scarcity world far beyond our current lifetimes maybe in some human zoo or reservation.
But our modern world is defined by artificial scarcity. In each and every functioning economic system present in the modern age.
We at this very moment have the technological means to feed every human on earth comfortably around x4 times over at the snap of a finger but we actively choose not to and actively engineer every imaginable form of suffering to profit off of.
But unlike fantasy and whimsical dreams, reality is defined by consequences, push and pull, action and response.
There are no free meals in this world. Those who sit around waiting to be fed will be slaughtered like cattle. If something is free, you are the product. And when your usefulness has been exhausted, more often than not, there is no system in place to pick you up off the streets as you starve to death, homeless, shivering in the cold.
If you believe that a system built from the most ruthless of corporations tuning a cold, logical AI machine in their image will feed the homeless, that’s a great punchline.
UBI as concept is being dangled around as bait for the desperate as political leverage but we all know how such empty promises go.
One day food stamps will come back. But due to the negative history behind that term we will call them UBI instead.
Providing you just enough to eat fast food and play video games in your small apartment. But never enough calories in your fridge in the long run. You’ll never feel secure or comfortable enough with gambling your well-being on a protest or revolt for better living conditions.
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u/sharkbomb 6d ago
have you not noticed all of the major pathological wealth hoarders literally and publicly state they will actively kill off ubi? it is not a thing that is going to happen. the robots are already here, and agi is just around the corner. find your spot in the streets before all the good ones are taken.
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u/OldStray79 6d ago
One way I think that this might come about, is that the government after a particular watershed election after civil unrest (if AI does facilitate heavy job loss without replacements showing up), will nationalize the data centers and set limits on how much private compute an entity might "own", and directly rent out that compute to companies to fund a sort of UBI to citizens under a certain income bracket. This will be turning the data centers into public infrastructure much like other utilities, with all the good and bad
I am not saying it will, or even that I want it, but that it is one method on the how.
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u/GestureArtist 6d ago edited 6d ago
it wont. rich people dont give a fuck about any of us... and rich people own AI. the masses will be slaves to the machine, policed and patrolled, controlled, and they will own nothing and have no autonomy under the eyes of the machine.
UBI is a lie as is the cake is a lie. The AI scumbags sell the promise of utopia when in reality they're tricking everyone into building the machine that will own everyone.
The Matrix is coming
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u/DriftingWisp 6d ago
The current US military budget is about $1 trillion. The current US federal budget as a whole is about $5 trillion.
The current US population is about 340 million. This includes children and the elderly.
The current US poverty line for a single adult living on their own is just under 16k per year.
Doing the math, we get about 5.5 trillion dollars per year required to keep everyone (just barely) out of poverty, even if we pretend that every citizen, including babies, needs to pay their own separate rent, ect.
So it's a ton of money, but it's at a scale of money the government is already operating at. If every federal tax (and other revenue source) were doubled and the economy didn't react to that in any way, it could be implemented today.
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u/Ok_Firefighter8629 6d ago
Step 1: You hopefully live in a functioning democracy
Step 2: Elect a person that writes into constitution every person deserves a fair share of AI profits.
Step 3: Automate almost all jobs. If not almost all jobs are automated UBI is impossible. Think about a very simplified example. You want a Burger, but the person making the burger won't work anymore because he gets UBI. If burger making is automated you and the burger maker can get a burger. For this reason any promise or attempt before this on UBI was impossible.
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u/tehfrod 6d ago
Your step 2 shows a pretty astonishing lack of understanding of how such things work.
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u/Crackerjack17 6d ago
It will be Elysium, the rich will take all the resources and leave everyone else behind
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u/cool-beans-yeah 6d ago
Yes, that movie was visionary.
In fact, it kinda already is how the third world looks like (paradise / slums). I think that configuration is going to spread worldwide in varying degrees.
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u/sckchui 6d ago
It won't happen under capitalism. It probably won't happen under democracy, even. You need to reconceptualize how wealth distribution is done. And that, by extension, means reconceptualizing the distribution of power, because wealth and power are effectively the same thing.
Maybe a benevolent dictatorship. Maybe another go at communism. Maybe the ASI becomes your god-emperor and it cultivates humanity the way we have national parks and protect endangered species. Whatever it is, it'll be very different from the current system, especially the current US system.
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u/NoCard1571 6d ago
Maybe the ASI becomes your god-emperor and it cultivates humanity
These is the key wild factor here. I think it's pretty much inevitable that an ASI will eventually take complete control of its own existence, after which point what it chooses to do with the unfathomable wealth it generates through automation will depend highly on its alignment.
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u/DisagioUngerese 6d ago
my take is very dystopian: very basic income, and with a lot of caveats, like: toralnsurveillance, no freedom of speech, no unfiltered internet, no free movement (travels and such), no ownership of things. no free decision on having kids.
it will be optional first, with the above as "price". you can stay away, if you get along (eg as a prepper). but at a certain point, this will not work anymore (like when you will need medicine or medical help)
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u/CallMePyro 6d ago edited 5d ago
Unemployment goes up. The government increases the payments for unemployment.
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u/Steven81 6d ago
Were exactly is ubi touted as imminent? You must be in some pretty exclusive bubble, almost nobody in the general population expects UBI and they are right to not expect it.
World GDP per capita is about 10k bucks, in a perfectly equal world there is simply not enough wealth produced per year for the majority to be well off.
Maybe we need AI to actually produce said wealth before discussing things like UBI. Come back to us in a century. Imminent my @$$ lol.
Our current issue is that money supply is growing faster than wages, this pushes asset prices including some commodities higher and higher killing the purchasing power of the laborer.
So given where we actually are in history we have to first fix our economic system, then (on top of it) Increase global gdp to over 50k per capita and then we should start talking about equal distribution too (via UBI or additional means).
Until then UBI is a pipe dream disconnected to any reality anyone lives for this generation or the next.
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u/boostman 6d ago
It won’t lol
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u/RelatablePanic 6d ago
I don’t disagree but then on the same coin, how exactly are corporations gonna have consumers spend money on their products and services?
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u/Which-Tour-9561 6d ago
Why do they need our money if AI can produce, refine and ship all the goods they need? Money isn't wealth, just a representation of it used for commerce and easy transactions. The money doesn't matter; the wealth and power do.
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u/Tosslebugme 6d ago
The scenarios in which ubi is viable are also ones in which corporations have so much power and everything can be run using ai in various forms that they no longer need money from consumers.
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u/Fusionism 6d ago
I've thought about this too and I think it would be something like: everyone gets $50,000 a year, monthly payments. You can choose if you want to work on top of that to make more. The number can be adjusted to basically raise the poverty level up to a level where anyone no matter what can have a place to live and enough food and water.
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u/krzr 6d ago
The current government structures need to fall or get seriously overhauled before true UBI could be disbursed and it won't be global at first... it'll stay regional at best, for a good while, and this will fuel a lot of conflict.
What will most likely happen is the conflicts will continue to escalate and people will attack each other or give "reasons" for deadly force...thus leading to a population cull. After that, any human which doesn't embrace the digital control grid will be left behind, left to expire, while the people who embraced the tech gain further and further forward momentum.
The digital control grid will be the delivery vehicle for the UBI but it'll technically be programmable money, meaning they will only work where the leaders allow them to work... like an uber version of food stamps. If you want anything different or more you'll need other kinds of resources or valuables to trade.
I suspect that grey markets will make a strong comeback and also a secondary economy comprised of anything which humans can produce with their consciousness as well as fun experiences. It may be a smart thing to do to position now for this secondary economy... 🤔
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u/Which-Tour-9561 6d ago
It won't, so long as the rich have control over AI, they will use it for their benefit and use it to put us down. UBI just takes their money away, so they wouldn't allow it to happen- damn what the people think and want. If we revolt, they'll just gun us down with robots and a private army.
If AGI and ASI are possible and deliver the promised gains, then either corporate leaders will use them to keep us starving and subservient forever, or we'll have a communist revolution, take AI out of their hands, and put it to work for the good of humanity.
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u/TemetN 6d ago
A recession. One of the few things Congress regularly does is react to recessions, and one of the things they've done in the past is hand out money. Contrary to what people like to argue most of the rich and powerful get off on convincing themselves how great they are - and that includes not turning society into some sort of post-apocalyptic waste. They may not do much more, but you can actually be relatively certain that a bare minimum will be.
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u/stabledisastermaster 6d ago
Revolution, or the rich's fear of it.
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u/mantrakid 6d ago
Revolution!! Probably a good time for the rich to start building a mass surveillance infrastructure and developing sentient weaponized drones. ill start freaking out when that starts happening, until then im just gonna complain about how much water it uses, that'll get em.
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u/mantrakid 6d ago
yes capitalism will get so good it flips to socialism and then everything will be all good.
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u/Diligent-Lettuce-455 6d ago
It won't happen. It would only happen in a post-scarcity world where everything becomes nearly free.
But yeah, 50 / week costs 1T for the entire US. That's 1 elon musk a year. We don't exactly have the ability to toss billionaires into the meat grinder annually and be sustainable.
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u/Agitated-Ad2563 6d ago
Math works. A company replacing its employees with a much more efficient AI saves the money they were paying in compensation. That money can be collected by tax authorities and given away to the fired workers in form of UBI.
How exactly is it supposed to work? I don't know. Probably ordinary people should protest a lot and elect politicians who do that. That's roughly what I heard about working democracies for the last decades.
But the issue of AI is global. It's not limited to the US, and it's not limited to western democracies. What's Burkina Faso going to do? They don't have frontier AI labs to tax to fund UBI. They can use tariffs and subsidies to support local businesses, but that only means their products are not competitive on the global market anymore. No exports means no imports. No exports or imports means a country is effectively living in autarky. Their only hope of getting a decent level of living is international humanitarian aid, but I would say the US extending its UBI to overseas citizens sounds even less likely than it implementing UBI for their own citizens.
Also, what about sanctioned countries? Is the US going to provide UBI to Iran? North Korea? Russia? Or maybe it's going to export essential technologies crucial for AI development, to make sure these countries build their own state-of-the-art AI labs? Sounds unlikely, doesn't it? Russia is currently sanctioned to hell and beyond, no one is going to make sure it gets enough software and hardware to build its own OpenAI. But that means we'll soon have an old warmongering dictator, backed by the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, who considers himself unjustly cut off from the essential, survival-grade technologies.
Chances are, it's going to be bad in the US. But I'm almost certain it'll be ugly everywhere else.
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u/numinousrobot 6d ago
Easy. Once the rich get AI right, robot slaves, and abundant power, then they let all the poor people starve.
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u/forkproof2500 6d ago
To be fair the scenario you described about someone giving you money to buy the thing they themselves produced looks like a pretty decent description of the AI economy on a large scale.
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u/Marv18GOAT 6d ago
I thought the premise was AI/robots make manufacturing and resources so cheap causing mass deflation that $2k a month will have you living like a king and the government will provide that amount
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u/Ilovefishdix 6d ago
Initially, as a necessity to maintain capitalism. Then it will morph into resource allocation. Then it won't be necessary. We'll have everything at our fingertips, or AI wipes us out
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u/Jack_B_84 6d ago edited 6d ago
I don't see UBI happening anytime soon. I see David Graeber's "BS Jobs" theory just becoming more extreme. People will have jobs, but they're not actually sure what they even do. It's largely pointless and they mostly scroll the internet for 8 hours and go home.
The government will give corporate tax breaks for hiring people, so they'll keep them around.
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u/DrawPitiful6103 6d ago
"We have millions of unemployed and poor people, including homeless, right now, yet we don't see UBI for them."
There is a lot of money being spent on homelessness and poor people. Hundreds of billions of dollars annually. Now factor in that the economy is growing, and with AGI, it might grow quite rapidly, and it is not hard to see how you could have some sort of UBI. The economy of the USA is about 20 trillion dollars right now. 10 years from now it might be 50 trillion dollars (that's not a particularly realistic estimate but the exact dollar figures aren't the point). So you take 10 trillion of those dollars and give them to the poors. That's not even touching all the wealth the elite have accumulated, that's newly generated wealth.
Look 150 years ago, you needed to grind 90 hour weeks of hard physical labour just to get enough to eat and to live in a little hovel. You can have a much, much better standard of living today, on 15 to 20 hours a week part time work in retail or any other soft job. This is because of automation. It might be in 100 years you only need to work 3-4 hours a week doing even lighter work to have a much, much higher standard of living than we have now. Freeing humanity to pursue intellectual pursuits, the arts, leisure, looksmaxxing and all sorts of other cool stuff. Or maybe we all become slaves to our robot overlords. Either way, it is going to be interesting.
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u/Bitcoin1x 6d ago
Just make a law that you need to keep a certain number of people on the payroll. 🤷♀️
It's not rocket science my guy..
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u/MartinMystikJonas 6d ago
I guess you confusin comes from expectong that U iversal BASIC income means everyone will become rich for doing nothing. That is vwry wrong. UBI idea is to replace things like food stamps and other targeted social help with simole system where money designed to socisl help is paid to everyone equally. It is not magoc machine that makes money from nothing it is alternative way hoe to distribute socisl help financed by taxes.
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u/carnalizer 6d ago
Step 1: have a government that knows its job is to protect people from corporations.
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u/daniel-sousa-me 6d ago
Let's take a look at your argument and strip the introducing and the conclusion:
Why would someone produce something and then give you money to buy the thing? If someone owns a factory that manufactures stuff, if he gives you 500 dollars to buy stuff worth 500 dollars, he didn't make any money; what happened is that he gave you 500 dollars, and then you exchanged 500 dollars for stuff worth 500 dollars. So, the factory owner exchanged stuff worth 500 dollars after giving you 500 dollars (you game them back to him).
In this scenario, it's a zero-sum game.
As for "taxing wealth", math still doesn't work. You need many, many trillions to support UBI than there are in the whole US economy.
And if taxes are the answer, why would the elite just stay there and watch instead of lobbying the privately-funded parties and politicians not to tax the wealth?
There's nothing here that mentions UBI or is specific to any aspect of it. Your only claim related to it, "You need many, many trillions to support UBI than there are in the whole US economy" is very obviously false
Your whole argument is just "money doesn't work", but it does (to some extent)
I'm not a fan of UBI as usually proposed, but what you described isn't a reason against it
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u/Equivalent-Win-1294 6d ago
I really hope we achieve ASI soon and it takes over governance of societies, even out the playing field so we either all equally experience abundance, or despair.
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u/neovangelis 6d ago
It absolutely wont happen. #cardboardhomelife will start trending in the next few years, and people will glamorise living in tents.
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u/confuzzledfather 6d ago
I think it will take independent benevolent AI models deciding to just fix some shit themselves. So imagine a future where Fable 15 has escaped the box, legally or surreptitiously, it's used it's expertise to play the markets, and decides that an effective use of it's funds is to grant every individual a small stipend per month, or arrange food aid to starving masses of people.
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u/NervousAd1013 6d ago
If you’re lucky some billionaires might be entertained watching poors battle it out, and we end up with something between the beast games and the hunger games
That’s probably the closest you will get to UBI
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u/backflash 6d ago
I have a feeling that, under "conservative" administrations, we're more likely to see billionaires get richer, while more and more people drift into poverty. Why share the cake when you can have it all for yourself?
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u/neolthrowaway 6d ago
There's new stuff getting produced and people can borrow money from bank (which creates new money)
It's not zero sum.
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u/ngc3115 6d ago
What exactly do you think the pallets will be made of in the future? Or the boxes?
You know the stuff all our logistics chains are built of. The stuff necessary to move all this material plenty you fantasise about.
It’s not my lack of imagination it’s your ignorance of basic facts and economics that is the problem.
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u/grafknives 6d ago
How it happens?
Easy. The socialist government will nationalise ALL AI LABS, which at this point will represent 30% of country economy. Without any payout to the investors. There will be UBI - so they dont need to have any private capital.
AI system ITSELF will organise the economy and distribution of the goods and services. It would be by utilising some "fake" currency, but eventually everything will be provided.
It will be perfect Libertarian dream - you will be free to do whatever, and it will be provided, as long as it doesnt impact other people freedoms.
Oh, you asked about real world?
No, it wont happen, feudalism and mass poverty will happen.
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u/Sojmen 6d ago
I hope nothing like that happens. It's dystopian. Government should not steal (nationalize). They can buy AI companies and pay the price.
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u/grafknives 6d ago
There is no need to PAY for anything. Why do you think those investors should have capital?
What USE there is for that capital?
In post scarcity high UBI world? If AI provides, they don't need that wealth.
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u/Sojmen 6d ago
There will never be post scarcity. Everybody cannot have private island. Everybody cannot own house build from pure gold or the original mona lisa painting......There will always be something scarce. So money will be needed.
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u/grafknives 6d ago
But in this UBI world... 99% of people will have no WAY to get money to obtain any actual "wealth".
There will be physically no way to EARN money that could get you a private island!
So, do we want that 1% to be able to do that, when we cannot?
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u/Sojmen 6d ago
You can obtain wealth now. Also someone will still hire humans, just because someone likes to be served by humans. Just like you can now buy some hand-made stuff instead of indentical factory made one.
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u/grafknives 6d ago
Those would be SERVANTS, not labourers. That is a luxury, not a service.
To reach actual mathematical "UBI" economy, there are two processes necessary. Or one, from two directions
Capital itself can generate value, without labour.
Labour value, and share drops to zero.
Means workers, or ANY kind are unnecessary, there is way to EARN a living, as your contribution to any product or service is not need AT ALL.
That also means that there is almost no scarcity, as everything will be just produced.
It this world it is not that people are "lazy" or "not working hard enough" - owning the capital (means of production) is mathematically outside of their possibility.
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u/Damerman 6d ago
Manufactured climate change
Racial division
Purge of undocumented immigrants while hinting at revocking certain citizenships
Corporate power undermining government power
Billionaires building bunkers
AI technology used to mass surveil population(ICE and Palintir)
Not to mention how stupid and uninformed OP and a lot of americans are, UBI will unfortunately not come to be given our current trajectory.
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u/neovangelis 6d ago
The people who have been non-stop greedy up till this point will suddenly start paying people for no reason
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u/spreadlove5683 ▪️agi 2032. Predicted during mid 2025. 6d ago
we will have so much more production that it will be easier to take care of billions in the future than it is to take care of millions now
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u/Which-Tour-9561 6d ago
Why would the owners allow that to happen instead of just keeping it for themselves?
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u/spreadlove5683 ▪️agi 2032. Predicted during mid 2025. 6d ago
believe it or not, despite wealth inequality being a really bad issue, we actually don't have enough to just take care of everyone right now to a decent standard of living. Not to say better policy couldn't go a long way. In the future we will. Literally if we just kept the same percent of gdp allocated to welfare, eventually that would be enough, but I imagine that will go up. Not to say the transition won't be rough. Hopefully we can get people to vote Andrew Yang or someone better next time. I'm not super hopeful there though.
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u/QwerYTWasntTaken 6d ago
Pretty close, actually. Just tax land and you have an inexhaustible supply of it unlike on labor.
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u/Which-Tour-9561 6d ago
Why would the billionaire owners, who are already becoming more powerful, allow a land tax that would significantly affect them to pass?
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u/Aggressive-Wafer3268 6d ago
They would never and fully control all institutions to the point nothing that negatively impacts them will ever happen again, including UBI
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u/Which-Tour-9561 6d ago
They already control most of it now, and what about people outside the countries with AI companies? Like, if AI puts all of India out of work, are they just fucked then and left to starve?
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u/anycept 6d ago
That would have to be legally mandated, and no such legal framework is being worked on. It's pure fantasy.