With UBI as the sole income source for an unemployable populace, economic advancement shifts from productive work to political activism. Groups will constantly lobby the government for a larger share of resources, making politics a high-stakes, unstable, and zero-sum game.
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Even if AI is a perfect success with no catastrophic risk, our society may still crumble. We lack the political cohesion and shared values to agree on fundamental solutions like Universal Basic Income (UBI) that would be necessary to manage mass unemployment, turning a technological miracle into a geopolitical crisis.
Proponents of UBI envision a future of self-actualized artists and thinkers. The more probable outcome for many is a loss of purpose, leading to a 'farm animal existence' of passive consumption and despair. The US reservation system serves as a grim real-world example of this dynamic.
Demis Hassabis suggests Universal Basic Income (UBI) is an insufficient, 'add-on' solution for a post-AGI society. He posits that we will need entirely new economic models, potentially resembling direct democracy systems where communities vote on resource allocation, to manage post-scarcity abundance.
Liberalism thrives in a positive-sum world where individual freedom leads to collective wealth. A post-work society dependent on UBI shifts the dynamic to a zero-sum competition for a fixed pie of resources. This erodes the pragmatic case for free speech, pluralism, and economic freedom.
Pensioners receive benefits because they spent decades working, contributing to the system, and accumulating political bargaining power. A society of "forever pensioners" who never had that economic leverage would be at the mercy of the ruling elite's whims.
In a future where AI and robots create all wealth and concentrate it among a few owners, societal stability will be impossible. To prevent a violent revolution, a massive redistribution of wealth—akin to communism or UBI—will become a pragmatic necessity, even for those ideologically opposed to it.
While Universal Basic Income (UBI) might solve the economic fallout from AI-induced job loss, Ariel Poler is more concerned with the resulting existential crisis. For most people, jobs provide identity, structure, and meaning. The challenge isn't just funding people's lives, but finding productive ways for them to spend their free time.
Sam Harris challenges the fear that Universal Basic Income (UBI) would create mass purposelessness by pointing to historical aristocracies. He argues this large population, who didn't have to work, still managed to find meaning and live recognizably happy lives, serving as a real-world test case for a leisured society.
A large, unemployed populace with free time and powerful AI assistants represents a massive potential for civil disobedience. This heightened capacity to disrupt will be seen as an existential threat to state stability, compelling governments to implement repressive measures and curtail previously tolerated freedoms.
Giving people a basic stipend won't end economic competition. Instead, it will fuel a secondary economy where people compete for each other's stipends through new forms of gambling, entertainment, entrepreneurship, and status games.
