Interesting that UBI is now such a mainstream topic, and this trend will only grow from now on.
Despite what Mr. Sacks might say, the day is still coming when robots & AI will be able to do most work, and be so cheap as employees, humans won’t be able to compete against them in a free market economy.
What won’t change either is that our existing financial order - stocks, 410ks, property prices, taxes that pay for a military - is predicated on humans being the ones that earn the money.
Mr Sacks is part of a political force driven by blue-collar discontent with globalization. He might be against UBI, but the day is coming when his base may be clamoring for it.
Trump’s AI czar says UBI-style cash payments are ‘not going to happen’
I was a manufacturing engineer for 7 years. The plant I last worked in had lines with 40+ machines per worker. It was heavily automated. Automation has been increasing since the industrial revolution started. But it’s only a mainstream concern when it’s white collar jobs at risk. Amazon increasingly automating it’s fulfillment centers for the last decade doesn’t make the news.
Don’t take this as me being supportive of AI or critical of UBI. Neither are true. I just think it’s telling us who matters in our society. A tech company laying off people gets widely discussed here. The first plant I worked in closed down in order to expand the more automated sister plant. 500 people lost their jobs to that and the people in my town didn’t even know or really care.
I think you could start a decent riot with 500 people
Wouldn’t happen for several reasons. This was a small, shitty, southern town. The reason this town had manufacturing was because of tax breaks. Education officials actually met with some of our management to ask what would make their students better workers. Class consciousness was the furthest thing from feasibility.
Also, the way the shutdown was done spread out the impact. The facility was originally 3 buildings with several stages of the manufacturing vertically integrated. Over ~5 years they outsourced those prior stages to outside suppliers and slowly shut down lines until only one building was still in use. By the time the announcement was made, we only had maybe 200 employees and the plant would slowly wind down over 1.5 years with a few people getting a buy out and some getting paid more to stay to the end. If it was one big moment, maybe the people would’ve felt the impact.
Also, this was a “right to work” state. Aka, unions are banned statewide.