Will we have Basic Income in the future?

Joe McCormick. And today we're gonna be talking about a topic related to economics, something that we have I would say we've brushed up against it before on this show when we talked about Star Trek economics, some some other issues related to automation. But today we thought it would be a good time to jump headfirst into the topic

of the basic income. Yeah. I almost think of this as like a a stepping stone, if you will, toward that Star Trek future where money no longer is a thing except when the plot requires to be right right or I mean for Ferengie who just really like it. Yeah,

the latinum, the press latinum. Yeah. Yeah. And it's been a topic of our conversation because as artificial intelligence and robotics become more advanced and less expensive, robots are going to take our jobs and specifically our tedious dangerous and damaging hard labor type jobs, especially those those will happen first question about it, others will follow. That's that's kind

of the scary thing, isn't it. Like one of the things I want to talk about later in this episode is a paper that I've referenced in a couple of things I've written for how Step Works that came out in by the Oxford researchers Carl Benedict Fry and Michael A. Osborne. And this paper is essentially a big look at where the future trends in automation are going to be, what jobs are going to be taken over by machines and

by computer software. And as we record this podcast, Lauren and are actually preparing to fly to Austin, Texas to attend south By Southwest two thousand sixteen. Yeah, by the time you hear this, it will have already happen. Yeah, So we're giving you the future of the past right now.

But one of the things that we both noticed as we looked at the different track programming, uh you know lists on south By south West, which is an enormous conference that's interactive, film, music, tons of different stuff going on there, but one of the really big topics that we saw coming up again and again was this idea of automation. How is that going to impact the job market and how is that going to impact things like income? And so that's very much in line with what we're

going to talk about today. Yeah, So if you want to listen to a couple of those prior episodes that we've done, tune into one from December called will Robots Steal Our Jobs? Um? And then two from July called Hailing the Robotcab and Robot Taxis and the Future of Cab Drivers. Uh. And I don't have the the the episode title and date for the Star Trek Economy episode right in front of me, the Star Trek Economy, Okay,

so just google Star Trek Economy. I have faith in you. Um. But but to summarize what we said there, you know, in the long term, this is great, like what an incredible future, y'all, Like no one has to clean toilets, or drive cargo trucks, or turn and burn burgers or

like mine, toxic heavy metals unless they're really psyched about it. Um. In the short term, this is going to lead to so many growing pains and stands to specifically disenfranchise the people who are already living below the poverty line, even though they're working full time, because those are the kind of jobs that are going to go first, right, Yes.

And one reaction to this trend, and I should say, it's not just a reaction to the automation trend, but it's a it's an idea that is bigger than a reaction to automation, but may specifically come into play because of automation, is the basic income, what's known as a guaranteed basic income. So I want to start with a little news story that was the basis of a of a house Stuff Works Now video I shot earlier this week about the Ontario provincial budget. So. Ontario is a

province of Canada. It's their largest province. It's home to almost fourteen million people. And they release their budget online and it in chapter one, Section E Towards a Fair Society they write, and I'm just gonna read a longish quote here, but bear with me for a minute. One area of research that will inform the path of comprehensive reform will be the evaluation of a basic income pilot.

The pilot project will test a growing view at home and abroad that a basic income could build on the success of minimum wage policies and increases in child benefits by providing more consistent and predictable support in the context of today's dynamic labor market. I like that term dynamic. That seems kind of euphemistic, but I like that they spell labor with a U A supposed to volatile or

something like, Yeah, it's so dynamic it's terrifying. Yeah, would be another great work with this rickety old roller coasters dynamic. But anyway, continuing with the quote the pilot, and they're referring to the basic income pilot project. The pilot would also test whether a basic income would provide a more efficient way of delivering income support, strengthen the attachment to the labor force, and achieve savings in other areas such

as healthcare and housing supports. The government will work with communities, researchers and other stakeholders in sixteen to determine how best to design and implement a basic income pilot. And this seemed really interesting to me because essentially, with this budget statement,

the provincial government is announcing it's intentions. You might note that there aren't a lot of specific series, so we'll have to see what actually comes of this, but they're at least announcing their intention to do science on the governmental level. They want to run an experiment to see what happens when you try this new form of economics and find out whether or not it actually is efficacious. If so, does it make sense considering the the amount

of investment required to make it happen? Sure, and and what kind of less numbers based qualifiers wind up coming out of it, like like how do how does it impact people's happiness and people's productivity? Right? Good points. So we we shouldn't start with the definition. I guess what is a basic income? And how is it different from all the other types of welfare and social security that that are already in place in governments all around the world.

So there are a few different details and qualifications you could run variations on, you know, they're there are different ways to slice the pie. But in essence that the idea of a basic income is there's a government payout that's awarded to all citizens, without restrictions on use, without means testing. And it's these latter two parts of it that make it so different from most social security type programs today. So governments already have a lot of programs

that a ward financial assistance. But maybe you're only supposed to spend it on certain types of food items, like you you're only really supposed to spend it on food like food stamps. Or maybe you only get it if you're over a certain age, or maybe you only get it if you're under a certain income, or if you're unemployed but actively seeking work, or you know, any number of conditions. Family structure is a certain way. The basic income, on the other hand, is it strips away all of that.

It is an unconditional direct payout of money that every citizen receives, and anything on top of that you would get based upon your employment or lack thereof. So you work, you get it. You don't work, you get it right. You're young, you get it, you're old, you get it. It doesn't matter. Every citizen gets the basic payout right. And ideally the basic payout is somewhere in the level where you can see two very basic necessities at least at the very least um not necessarily some basic income

things I've seen. It's more along a small stipend that could offset your expenses, It doesn't necessarily take care of the basic needs even at that level. And in some cases I've seen people argue for advocate for a basic income that goes above what you would need for the the most essential necessities had to get you above the poverty line, right, which I believe in the United States study rate equals a little bit over eleven grand a

year right now, I think it. It can be calculated different ways depending on how many dependents you have, absolutely, and and honestly I didn't look up the most recent number right in two thousand and twelve, it was somewhere between eleven and twelve thousand dollars for and that will come into play in a little bit later in our our conversation as well. Right. So, obviously, as I've said, you can tinker with the idea, you can offer different

variations on it. There's no one idea everybody agrees on. But that's the basic idea. It's a direct, unconditional payout of money that you can spend however you want, and everybody gets it. But there are questions you can mess with, like should the payout be graduated according to your other income? Like should the poorest people get a bigger payout than people who have more money. I don't know. You might be able to argue one way or another. Uh do

you give the payout to adults ownly adults? Yeah? Or only to or to everybody including dependent children? Uh? And you know you mentioned this new idea. It's really the interesting thing is it's not that new of an idea. It's just it's one that we're starting to hear a lot of. Yeah. So if you want to look at maybe the origins of this idea are people who are advocated for something similar in years past. You can look all the way back to the sixteenth century early Dreds

with Thomas Moore. What a guy. You know, this is not the place we want to go if you're trying to make the case that the universal basic income is not necessarily utopianism, because Thomas Moore was explicitly utopianist. Yes. Yes, in fact he wrote on the subject quite extensively. He was a humanist and uh. He advocated an idea similar to basic income, though specifically intended for the poor, as opposed to a universal basic income that would go to

every single citizen of whatever country. He was specifically looking at England, but also did numerous uh He wrote a lot about the various countries in Europe at the time and talked about the idea of this minimum income. He argued that the minimum income would minimum income let me, let me enunciate properly, would create a greater social benefit than it would create a burden for the the state,

the government to pay this out. His argument was that if people are not making enough money, they end up turning to theft in order to meet their basic needs, and then we end up spending resources capturing them and punishing them, often killing them, which removes them from being able to make any sort of social contribution at all. If you are curious about that set of situations, you can go listen to our Future of Burials episode which

was just last week. So he argued that with a minimum income, you remove the the necessity for theft, and you remove the necessity for punishment and removing people from the possibility of contributing to society, and everyone benefits. Yeah, and and for furthermore, you know, if if you really care about human life, you you remove the necessity of the state at that time to you know, kill people

to commit murder. He also he also admittedly said, maybe killing people for what amounts to petty theft is a little excessive. That was a radical idea at the time of Thomas Moore. Uh Now, the notion evolved over time. Lots of other people ended up contributing to this idea and and tweaking it or adding different ideas that ended up kind of being folded into the concept of basic income.

Later on, in the eighteenth century, we started seeing the idea of basic endowment, which was sort of a precursor of life insurance. The idea being that, if, for example, a the the person who provided for a family were to die, would there be a system in place in order to keep that family sustained now that the person who was responsible for providing has passed away. That kind of concept. Then in the nineteenth century, utopian socialists began to argue for what would become basic income. It was

still a very early version of that. At that time.

The notion was that people were really moving into cities, and there was this kind of this this idea that the earth is there for all of us, right, that we all have an equal share of the earth, but we don't all have equal ability to reap the benefits of our share, especially if we're moving into cities and therefore you know, can't hunt or farm or exactly right, so we might not be able to benefit and someone else may be able to benefit well beyond their quote

unquote share of the earth. And so it was kind of an argument that there need to be this redistribution in some ways just for basic survival. Again, not meant to have someone thrive at the expense of someone else, which actually is what was going on already, but but to to make sure that people who were having difficulty meeting their basic needs could in fact meet them through

this philosophical argument, and that was really interesting. Then moving on to the twentieth century, philosophers began to argue for a more refined approach. Bertrand Russell and Roads to Freedom suggested that a secured minimum incomes sufficient for meeting the basic necessities for a person survival should be available to everyone. Larger incomes would be available to those willing and able to do more work, so those who contribute more to

society get more out of it. So it's not People sometimes equate basic income with concepts like communism, but that's not what Russell was arguing. He was arguing, no, if you if you do work, you should be rewarded for that work. We're talking about a baseline income everyone gets beyond that. It. Yeah, It's all comes down to your willingness to actually work and contribute to society, and those who do more earn more. Uh So that's kind of an interesting idea that I think appeals to a lot

of people on a very basic level. Now, as we go into discussing more about basic income, you'll understand that things that intellectually sound very simple in reality turn out to be insanely complicated. In reality. There is no such thing as simple. That's sort of what reality means. Yeah, I guess so. Uh. Nonetheless, there are several places that have been experimenting with implementing a program like this. Yeah, so we mentioned that the the Ontario Budget statement has

announced that it has intentions to look into it. But there's also there are also activists in Switzerland who have managed to get a version of basic income sort of uh, at least up for a vote. I mean, if it has any chance of actually becoming the law, I don't know, but it's it's it's on the table, right Switzerland. Uh, and it's also i know, been discussed in Finland and in communities in the Netherlands, and you mentioned in your now video that that Quebec has also been thinking about. Yeah,

there's been discussion about it. Okay, Yeah, So so what's

the appeal of having a basic income today? Well, as we've kind of been discussing, there's a lot of social issues that could potentially be alleviated by this, you know, homelessness, hunger, petty crime, maybe even connected issues like criminal violence, gang and mob activity, substance abuse, poor mental health, and you know, related issues like domestic abuse, uh and the general a gory of like citizens lack of health insurance, creating this

undue taxpayer burden through the overuse of emergency medicine rather than the healthier and cheaper preventative medicine that people with you know, money can access um It can also potentially boost the economy, like a kind of canes in perspective there sure, sure, the you know, the effects of this kind of thing on economies are always unpredictable because there's just so many factors at play. You know. The economy is is like a like a version of the weather

that for me is a lot less fun to think about. Um, But you know, it seems likely that there would be a stimulus effect short term as people receive new spending power, and there's certainly a possibility that the effect would continue long term. And one of those people have money to spend, they spend it. Businesses make more money, they hire more people.

One of the arguments specifically about boosting the economy falls down on that that not falls down but is specifically directed at the homelessness problem, saying that it is extremely difficult to to break out of that problem of homelessness, that this would address that, and that people who were homeless would have the money to uh end up getting a roof over their heads, and from that baseline, they're much more likely to succeed in becoming a contributing member

of society. Uh That Without that, the the cards are so stacked against them. It's it's incredibly remarkable when someone is able to emerge. Yeah. Sure, you know, because because if you can't take a shower, it's harder to get a job and etcetera. Um, But all of our our personal like quasi socialism, fuzzy wuzzy feelings about all of this aside there are also lots of conservatives who have been talking about this as a as a potentially good plan.

Oh yeah, I mean this idea actually does have conservative supports. Certainly not among all conservatives, but there have been conservatives who backed it. One of the main reasons is that

it's a government reducing plan essentially. So right now you have a whole bunch of different means tested social security and welfare measures, and you have massive administrations and bureaucracies to oversee how these funds are given out and to make sure that they're they're given to the right people, and that people aren't trying to game the system by getting funds that they're not supposed to get, by trying

to falsify or commit fraud. And you know, it's there's there's massive systems in place just trying to hold everything together to meet the requirements. And what if you just get rid of all the requirements. No more means testing, no no more any of this, it's just everybody gets the payout. That that's a that is a government reduction and so it replaces bureaucracy with the simple egalitarian system

of social security. And in fact, there's one instance this is not exactly basic income, but along the same lines. The Eco him as Milton Friedman, who is usually considered a libertarian or some form of economic conservative, talked about the idea of a negative income tax. And this is essentially a two way inverted progressive taxation. So the more money you make, the more taxes you pay. But also below a certain threshold that that tax tax fee inverts to a payout rather than a fee, so you are

you receive money from the government rather than paying in. Uh. In In in the nineteen sixties, Richard Nixon actually proposed a version of basic income. So yeah, yeah, so it's it's We should also point out that while uh, you know, this is not this is not simply a liberal versus conservative issue, that there are supporters on both sides, they're also critics on both sides exactly, and that that's, uh,

that's a very good thing to point out. So one of the most obvious criticisms but something worth talking about in a little bit of detail is how do you pay for it? Sounds like if you're giving everybody money, you need do have a lot of money to give them? And where do you get it? Well? Shared like how but how much money are we talking about? Yeah, that

that's worth talking about. So here we go. There is a November twelve thirteen piece by a guy named Danny Vinnick in Business Insider that did some math on this, actually just crunch some numbers to see roughly how much something like this would cost in the United States at

the time. And so he was working off of twelve numbers from the budget in the census, and what he came up with was that from the twelve numbers, if you wanted to pay every adult in the United States between the ages of twenty one and sixty five, and he excluded over sixty five because that's when Social Security kicks in, and that's a different that's a different paying pool. So they just beginning social Security twenty one to sixty five.

If you wanted to pay all those people an amount equal to the poverty line, which at the time he said was eleven thousand, ninety five dollars, it would cost two point fourteen trillion dollars. That's a that's a chunk of change. It is uh And he offers a point of comparison just to say, okay, two point fourteen trillion, how much is that compared to other big chunks of

the US federal budget. Well, at the time g d P was sixteen trillion, so that's the the value of all final goods and services produced in the United States was sixteen trillion, So this would be a little more than one eighth of all the value of goods and services produced in the United States. But at the same time, the US military budget was seven hundred billion dollars, So I mean the government spends a lot of money in

the United States. Well wait, wait, wait, wait, Joe, that you were talking earlier, though, the conservatives were pointing out that this approach also is about streamlining government, right, so it wouldn't just be two point fourteen trillion on top of everything the government already spends, but it would be partially replacing existing spending. So I want to read a

quote where he deals with this part. He says, Aggressional Research Service report found that the federal government spins approximately seven hundred and fifty billion each year on benefits for low income Americans, and that rises to a clean trillion when you factor in state programs. Eliminate all those and the net figures. So there he's saying, the cost of the basic income minus the cost of the eliminated programs comes out to about one point two trillion needed to

pay for a universal basic income. Still a hefty sum, and I have to agree that's still a pretty hefty sum. Yeah, I think that's a pretty uh, pretty nice understatement. So you could experiment with different payout options and sent compensations. So, for example, you could say, well, we're not going to pay people the entire all the way up to the

poverty line, pay everybody almost twelve thousand dollars um. Or you could say that, well, we're gonna make other cuts to the federal budget to compensate for that that one point to trillion, Or you could increase tax revenue on the richest. Uh. There lot of ways you could slice the pie to make it work. But no matter what,

somebody's going to feel the squeeze. This would be an expensive thing to pay for and somehow you would have to find that money, right, So one of the things that the Ontario pilot program will have to find out is whether or not, again the money invested into the program ends up creating a better return, not just not just financially, which obviously that would be important, but obviously in the quality of life of the people the program is meant to help. If it's not helping them, that's

a huge problem. If it's helping them but it's really expensive, that that might be a problem people are willing to talk about. And uh, and and overcome through whatever means, whether it's increase in taxes or something else. Sure, and while we're talking about those kinds of sociological and psychological issues, Uh, is this going to make people just quit their jobs? That's the other big question, isn't it. Because economists debate about this on one hand, you've got this view that

it sort of makes sense. Think about this. Anytime you subsidize something, you encourage it. If you that's kind of point, right, If you pay out for something, you you are fostering more of that thing. And so the basic incomes subsidizes, according to these people, subsidizes unemployment or underemployment, and so you can just sort of expect if you subsidize that you're going to get more of it. But then again, the basic income isn't just paid to people who don't work.

It's paid to everybody, even those who do work. And in most formulations, it's not a whole lot people are gonna want more. It's just enough so that people can have some kind of security, something to work with. I think if you were to argue that everyone in the United States, that's going with the example we had mentioned earlier, everyone in the United States gets twelve dollars, I think the vast majority would say that's going to help. But

I can't live on twelve thousand. Twelve thousand dollars like the poverty line. Yes you could, you could maybe get your your basic necessities, but it's at a level that I think most people, particularly most people who are capable of listening to this podcast. Since presumably you have some kind of yeah, you've got something that allows you to do this, you probably would not feel like that would be a quality of life you would be you would

be comfortable and comfortable with. Yeah, you would definitely want something better than that. So the twelve thou dollars, I think for most people would be that's that's my baseline. I want more than that. It's hard to imagine a vast population of people who say that's gonna be enough for me, and I'm just gonna sit on my butt

and not do anything. Also, I think I think this argument puts or an assumption that I don't entirely agree with, which is that most people left to their own devices wouldn't do anything if they could get around, if they could get by without it. It's certainly a widespread assumption. A lot of people think this about other people. I think most folks find at least some satisfaction in doing something. It may not be that you love your job. I'm lucky. I love the job I do. Uh, And I realized

there are people who aren't in that situation. But I think a lot of people get at least some sense of satisfaction in doing something and earning something from the activity they're doing. Yeah. Well, no matter what you do,

there's dignity and honest work. Yeah. There's a really excellent piece in the Atlantic from the July August issue called a World Without Work, in which the writer Derrick Thompson spoke to a bunch of psychologists who pointed out that that most people, and most Americans in particular, base a pretty large part of their identity and their social sphere and their mental health on their jobs. That like be being productive and working towards a common goal are are

pretty basic things that humans like doing anecdotally. I mean, how many of your conversations with someone new have the question, so what do you do as one like that's one of the first things that you ask people. Now, all of this is to say that that the basic income is one approach to trying to uh to solve a problem, and not necessarily the right approach. We don't know yet. We'd have to see, and it may not be the

right approach for all places at all times. It may be that it works for certain countries or communities, but not everyone. And we certainly aren't advocating that a basic income goes out to everybody right now, unless it turns out that, yes, this is the best best way to solve this problem and we all benefit as a result. One of the reasons we're bringing this up, this topic

up is what we talked about at the beginning. We're getting to a point where there are very real concerns over a growing population about jobs being eliminated as a result of automation. So it may turn out that something like basic income ends up being a necessity not just for populations that are disenfranchised right now, but a growing population of people who were contributing to society were hard working people who have nowhere to work anymore because advances

in technology have eliminated the need for people to work. Right. So we we talked about this in the episode about will robots steal our jobs? But the basic principle is that automation makes human labor sets obsolete. And this isn't new, uh. You know, in previous centuries farm workers were replaced by farm machinery, and traditional weavers were replaced by the mechanization of the textile industry. But it does appear to be accelerating now. And it's not only accelerating, it's making different

types of human skills less and less comparatively valuable. So there used to be this set of skills you could separate off from all of the mechanical and menial labor and say, you know what those are safe. Like, you might worry that a job welding parts on an assembly line, think, well, you're doing a kind of routine task that's the same motions over and over again. I think a robot could

probably do that job. Um. But on the other hand, you'd say, well, you know, a person answering service calls for a tech support line or something like that that needs to be a human, of course, because that you know, they've gotta have language skills and stuff like that. Turns out it probably doesn't have to be a human. A human might be better at it in certain cases. But you can design a computer program to handle lots of

different kinds of tech support calls well. And until recently, I would argue that having a robot UH working within a warehouse environment to retrieve one of thousands of different types of products, to bring it in and pack it up and send it out would have been impractical because because you think about the different range of skills there. You've gotta you gotta recognition of the item you're looking for. You've got to be able to move around and pick

things up, different types of locomotion and manipulation. That's a lot of different skill sets that robots aren't very good at or very good at up until now. Is yeah, And if you see an Amazon warehouse now you you will probably see a lot of happy, go lucky robots

running around and not so many humans anymore. Most of the robots are actually robotic shelves like the like the products are on the robot, the robot comes to the area where the product needs to be moved off of the shelf onto like an assembly for for packing and shipping. It's uh, it's amazing. And we're seeing things also in all other industries, like we're seeing a growing concern and uh,

and things like the trucking industry. Yes, that that's a very possible automated job in the in the not too distant future. Huge number of human beings practice professions that involved driving cars. That's the main part of their profession, transportation logistics, trucking, cab drivers. Once you see how good Google's driverless cars are, you can quickly begin to see the problem when these millions of people are suddenly out

of work because replaced by self driving cars. And it's and it's easy for for people like us to sit around and go like, well, it's better for you in the long run, because the types of wear and tear that your body goes through when you're when you're sitting in a vibrating piece of machinery all day are are terrible. There. It's it's honestly not good for you. That's cold comfort

to a person, but exactly exactly food on the table. Yeah, yeah, So Anyway, at the beginning of this episode, I mentioned that study by by Fry and Osborne, the Oxford researchers who who essentially they took a huge list of occupations, basically a comprehensive list of US occupations, and tried to characterize the skills that are required for each of those occupations according to how easy they would be to automate

in the near future. And specifically, this is with reference to advances in three different fields machine learning, big data, and mobile robotics. And these are three fields that where it seems that automation is pushing the limits of what types of skills are available to machines that only humans could do before. Well, I mean, and we see news every single day about new developments and artificial intelligence that end up telling us well, sure, in this particular case,

it's something very specific. I'm thinking right now of Google defeating top Go players. That go as a game that for a long time people thought humans are going to be the best at this game. For a really long time. It's just so complicated. We thought it was going to be another twenty years. Wasn't it cute when when people were saying, well, yeah, now computers can beat the best human chess player free time, but they won't do it with Go well, because there were just so many more

possibilities of moves and GO compared to chess. That the thought was that if in fact everyone continued with the brute force approach, yeah, it's a lot less linear than something like chess. Yeah, it just it was just one of those things, the number of possible moves is so great that that brute force will never work. It's it's it's easy. It's easy for a human and difficult for a machine. And it was based upon a presumption that brute force was going to be the way of right.

Machine learning was not necessarily something that people were thinking about at that point. So, but that that illustrates that things that we previously thought were completely outside the domain of machines may not be. Uh. And and I think it was in that Oxford paper that that Oxford paper was mentioned in the Atlantic piece that that I was talking about. Uh. They said that that some fields that we would be very surprised to find can be done

by machines, like like like psychology. As as it turns out, people can sometime even be more honest talking to a robot psychologist than a human psychologist or an AI psychologist. Rather, I should say, but because they're not afraid of human judgment. I'm just imagining a robot psychologist saying, tell me about

your toaster. Well, one thing they definitely point out in their paper is they they quote previous research in economics that had essentially looked at the same problem, but from a few years earlier, and these earlier researchers had said, well, look, there are a few things that are not going to be done by machines anytime soon because they just require you know, basically human human intelligence that cannot be substituted by machines. And examples they gave were recognizing handwriting and

driving cars. Oh goodness, my gracious, and what do you know, just just a few years later. Now, that is hilarious that somebody said that, and they weren't dummies. These were very smart people who made those kinds of statements. Again, you can I know, our show is all about talking about the future. As it turns out, really knowing what's going to happen in the future is uh is next to impossible. In fact, I should just say it's impossible because you cannot anticipate what is what? What is? What

will happen? I mean, yeah, there will be there will be things that happen where whether it's an enormous Aha moment or just a series of developments that reached to this point where you didn't have any way of anticipating that when you were making your predictions that happens. Uh doesn't necessarily always happen for for good either. Sometimes it happens and things you were accounting on are now impossible.

So here's the question. Assuming that this this set of circumstances continues, and we see growing automation, and we see that fewer and fewer people are able to work jobs to get money, what does that mean in a big picture kind of way. Yeah, that that's a good question, And that's sort of why we brought this up in this episode. It's how we get back to the basic income. Because a number I'm sure you've you guys have encountered this.

A number of experts in robotics, artificial intelligence sort of, computer scientists and other technologists have talked a lot about the basic income. And when I first started noticing this phenomenon, I thought it was kind of weird. But now it makes sense to me, and I think it makes sense because they're the people doing the research that is going to make something like this possibly necessary in the future.

Just one example, there was a February interview with Huffington's Post with the AI expert mosche Vardi from Rice University, and I've already said this. Our current economic system requires people to either have wealth or to work to make a living, with the assumption that the economy creates jobs for all those who need them. If this assumption breaks down, and progress in automation is likely to break it down, I believe, then we need to rethink the very basic

structure or of our economic system. For example, we may have to consider instituting basic income guarantee, which means that all citizens or residents of a country regularly received an unconditional sum of money in addition to any income received from elsewhere. Uh And and I think that's one example

of this general trend I talked about. I'm sure you guys have observed this absolutely, And like I said, you know this is if you think this sounds like a kind of a stepping stone towards the star Trek economy, that's exactly the way I think of it too, is that ultimately, if you continue down this road far enough, you eventually come to the conclusion of, well, if all work is being done by machines, and all things that once we're scarce are now relatively easy to access, what

is the point of money? And if there's no way to get it and there's no real expense and you know, no real reason to spend it, do we need it anymore? And then what happens next? And that's what we kind of explored in our Star Trek episode. This one is more of a all right, well, let's look, let's look at that period of of of chaos between now and what could be one possible future. Not you know, of course, the Star Trek economic future may never come to pass.

We may never see that particular version into anything resembling reality. But it seems like a nice stick And and I'll say again as I have said before, that you know, if it leads to to fabulous jumpsuits for everyone, that I'm into it. Um. But okay, so, so there's there's

that period of chaos that we're talking about. There there are so many unknowns in this in between time, um, But there are a few historical precedences that we can kind of look at, Like during the Depression era here in the United States, the National Works Progress Administration hired some forty thou artists and writers to produce cultural work. Uh, you know, know, anything from from films to two paintings to uh to travel brochures and all kinds of stuff

like high Yeah. Yeah, of course performance are highly offensive. Uh. And and and also a little bit more on the on the end of that chaos UM in Youngstown, Ohio, the dismantlement of the steel industry in the nineties seventies has created this, uh, this this long term, kind of terrifying space in which a struggling but but increasingly strong community has come together to create um, to create art, and to create a four higher workforce. And and and

it's fascinating. It's a fascinating case study. Yeah. So, I mean, it's I think the the what the takeaway here is that we are seeing people come up with potential um, if not solutions, at least measures to try and offset some of the problems we currently have and ones that we know are on the horizon. There's no denying that it is going to happen. The question is how do we respond to it? Basic income is one of those strategies,

not necessarily the one that's gonna win out. So I've got a question I want to ask you, guys, and it's pretty much the same question I asked in my house Stuff works now video, But I think it's an important one. Let's let's say you're in a middle camp

on your opinion about the basic income. You can see the appeal in the technological obsolescence future, So you accept, Okay, if robots can do of human jobs better than humans can, and most of us cannot find paying work, yet there's all this wealth in the world because the robots can do all the labor for us, Yeah, then of course basic income makes sense. So you accept that. But at the same time, you say, well, now, right now, we

do not have justification for such an expensive system. How do you know when it's time, when it's your job? You know, Like, how do you know? How do you know when you've reached the threshold of of technological wealth and human skill obsolescence? After we high after we elect our first artificially intelligent representative to the House or congress person or president, I think at that point we're all going to have to agree with Okay, we we need to fix this for for people, or else we won't

be around for much longer. It is an interesting question like what is what is the you know, when does the thermometer fill up with red and you say let's throw the switch? Um, Honestly, I that that's an impossible question for me to answer. I I honestly don't know enough. And being the person I am, I'm probably more likely

to throw that switch earlier than other people are. Uh. That being said, I also recognize the monumentally difficult task of actually providing for this approach, and that it's one that would require some people to potentially make some pretty hefty sacrifices, uh, in order for other people to do well. And that's not kind of a system that we have, Like our system doesn't reward altruism. We have people who are very altruistic, very charitable, who are great philanthropists, but

that's kind of outliers and the system exactly. And then I don't I don't fault the system necessarily for that. I don't think that our system is is good or bad. I think of it as mostly a moral uh not immoral, but a moral and a moral systems. They run the world, man, they do, And it's just a question of where do

you where in your philosophy does this idea makes sense? Well, something I think I can, or I can at least hope we all agree on, is that it does make sense to run test cases and pilot projects absolutely like what it sounds like Ontario is proposing here. So you might not say, well, uh, it's time to throw the switch and put the entire country on this plan, but

to test it within some communities and see what happens. Yeah, and if even if it doesn't turn out, well, it's good to have that knowledge and understand how it plays out in front. And it could also lead to two better policies about uh, like like vaguely related issues like

like increasing um, increasing the minimum wage. Yes, so it may be one of those things where after after a pilot program has run its course, financial experts take a look at it, sociologists take a look at it, and they all say whether or not there was a net benefit or a net net detriment to this program, And then from that point forward you could say, all right, well, if based upon the results here, do we want to run another pilot program somewhere else, find out if in

fact this is something that is common to all areas. Maybe it's one of those things that we see works well in one region but not in another. Then if it doesn't work, what are are all What are the alternatives that we can look into, Because we still have a problem. So if that's not the solution, it may

not be we need to find something else that is. Yeah, and in direct answer to your question, Joe, I would I would say that there's probably a particular percentage of the population, a percentage which should be chosen by people who are way better at economics than I am, um at which like like beyond which, uh, we're going to need something like this, a percentage of our population losing

their jobs to automation. Okay, So maybe you could say, like, if we reach a point where there's x per cent of the people who are unemployed actively seeking work and cannot get it, then time for us to realize, yeah, flip that switch. I guess. So, yeah, I mean, at least to see if it in fact will work. If it's one of those things words it all right, So we're gonna be strapped for cash for a little while because we tried this program and it didn't work, so

we had to figure out something else. I mean that's yeah, yeah, no, I mean, I mean, let let's let's do the testing now while we're still at a relatively low percentage of people who are directly losing their jobs because of ribots. But let's work towards it, right. And also, remember, don't blame the robots. They're just doing their jobs. I'm sorry, they're just doing your jobs. Built They're just trying to

do what they're told. Yea. And eventually if you do blame them, they might say I'll show you why you created me. So on that cheerful note, let us conclude this episode of forward thinking. I'm curious to hear what you guys think. Do you think there's some alternative approach that works better? Are you all for basic income? At what level would you argue that would be an effective, uh, you know measure or is it just one of those things that you think will never work. I'm curious to

hear what you think. And also, if you have any suggestions for future episodes, write those in and send it in an email. The little address thing that you can put in in the two field is FW thinking at how Stuff Works dot com, or you can drop us a line on Twitter or Facebook. At Twitter, we are f W thinking. Just type FW thinking into Facebook search bar and we'll pop right up. You can leave us a message there and we will talk to you again

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