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UBI - If robots are taking jobs, their wages can be given to us

Orphia Nay

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Orphia Nay
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If robots are taking jobs, their wages can be given to us.

My idea for Universal Basic Income (UBI) Funding.

After all, we don't have to pay robots.

Discuss.
 
Orphia Nay said:
If robots are taking jobs, their wages can be given to us.

My idea for Universal Basic Income (UBI) Funding.

After all, we don't have to pay robots.

Discuss.
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You have to pay for the robots. And sorry, all the money goes to the owners of the robot factory, which is run by robots. Your only chance is to invest early in a robot-making company when it goes public, and hope you've chosen one that will be successful. Alternately, you could start your own robot-making company.
 
psionl0 said:
Does that include existing robots/computers or only new technology from now on?
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Modified said:
You have to pay for the robots. And sorry, all the money goes to the owners of the robot factory, which is run by robots. Your only chance is to invest early in a robot-making company when it goes public, and hope you've chosen one that will be successful. Alternately, you could start your own robot-making company.
Click to expand...

What are some laws about slave labour, ethical workplaces, and unfair dismissal? Those can be relevant to worker/robot transitions.

Let's use our imaginations, people, not just "It can't be done because it hasn't been done yet".
 
Orphia Nay said:
What are some laws about slave labour, ethical workplaces, and unfair dismissal? Those can be relevant to worker/robot transitions.

Let's use our imaginations, people, not just "It can't be done because it hasn't been done yet".
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That didn't address my question at all. Are you proposing to tax existing robots or not?
 
Modified said:
You have to pay for the robots. And sorry, all the money goes to the owners of the robot factory, which is run by robots. Your only chance is to invest early in a robot-making company when it goes public, and hope you've chosen one that will be successful. Alternately, you could start your own robot-making company.
Click to expand...

That is how the wealthy will make their money. If you own shares then your wealth will grow. If your income depends on a job then you will struggle. If we are lucky we will get a UBI. This will stop most crime done due to poverty.
 
The robots would need maintenance, upgrades when necessary and potentially other overheads.
 
RolandRat said:
The robots would need maintenance, upgrades when necessary and potentially other overheads.
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Overall productivity per human working hour will still be much higher though, and there will be much less need for labor.

I don't feel like UBI is a good general solution. Many people need the sense of purpose that work provides, even if they claim to hate working. When the problem becomes serious, 30 hour work weeks, then eventually 20, can buy a lot of time. There is some lower bound I guess where it isn't really "work" anymore.
 
Orphia Nay said:
If robots are taking jobs, their wages can be given to us.

My idea for Universal Basic Income (UBI) Funding.

After all, we don't have to pay robots.

Discuss.
Click to expand...

If we don't have to pay robots, whose wages are we all sharing? Also, who is the "us" in your scenario? Just the displaced workers or all of us?

Lets take McDonalds for example. They have effective replaced order takers with a kiosk. Let's say that takes away 3 full time order taker jobs. That's 120 hours a week over 13K locations for a grand total of 1.56 million hours a week. Let's say it's a generous 10 bucks and hour. That's 15.6 million dollars neither spent nor earned. In 2017, there were 153 million tax returns filed. That's roughly a penny a week for everyone. Cutting the checks cost more than that.

My point here is that even though 3 people essentially lost their job, they weren't making the kind of money that is going to, well, spread the wealth. Even at 100 bucks an hour, that's a dime a week for everyone. And this is just in the US.

So unless "Us" does not include everyone, making it not universal, I'm not sure how it could ever be funded this way. Too many people, not enough lost wages.
 
Orphia Nay said:
What are some laws about slave labour, ethical workplaces, and unfair dismissal? Those can be relevant to worker/robot transitions.

Let's use our imaginations, people, not just "It can't be done because it hasn't been done yet".
Click to expand...

You first. I'm having trouble imagining how such laws could be relevant. Can you show us how it's done?
 
If robot labor make most of Human labor obsolete, a
"Give us a Stipend or we smash the Toasters"-UBI
will become inevitable and cheaper than the alternative.
 
Modified said:
Overall productivity per human working hour will still be much higher though, and there will be much less need for labor.

I don't feel like UBI is a good general solution. Many people need the sense of purpose that work provides, even if they claim to hate working. When the problem becomes serious, 30 hour work weeks, then eventually 20, can buy a lot of time. There is some lower bound I guess where it isn't really "work" anymore.
Click to expand...
To me it depends on the structure of the UBI. I agree that it's a good feeling to be paid for your work, and to feel like you're doing something useful, even if it's just being kind and patient with customers. I don't like being unemployed, but lately I've enjoyed being underemployed which is my current circumstance. It won't last forever, but right now I have few expenses. Some of my work could be done by robots (kids learning with software), but they still need supervision. Being a full-time teacher would be a terrible grind in my current situation, but serving in a support role is quite enjoyable and lifts my overall mood.

Actually I can't do that right now either with closures, but I did some online editing work this spring of the sort that currently cannot be done effectively with robots. It feels good to me to have a chunk of the day devoted to useful work. If UBI could take that into account it might work better.
 
rjh01 said:
That is how the wealthy will make their money. If you own shares then your wealth will grow. If your income depends on a job then you will struggle. If we are lucky we will get a UBI. This will stop most crime done due to poverty.
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Yes, this is getting there, thank you, RJH.

With an UBI, less needs to be spent on community services, such as crime, family violence, and addiction, because most of those problems are about having no money.

Thus, the UBI can be higher.

The income from taxes on goods and services can go towards the UBI, plus the savings from community services.

This is basically already happening in Australia and the UK (not the robot factor directly).
 
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Orphia Nay said:
The income from taxes on goods and services can go towards the UBI, plus the savings from community services.
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With enough taxes you can pay for anything. But I thought this was about lost wages, and I don't think there will be enough lost wages to cover everyone.
 
Leftus said:
With enough taxes you can pay for anything. But I thought this was about lost wages, and I don't think there will be enough lost wages to cover everyone.
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It is, but only because our economic system insists that people have to 'earn' money to get the things they need.

When everything had to be produced by manual labor this wasn't a problem, because there were plenty of jobs to go around. But once you add labor-saving devices that allow capitalists to amass wealth without human labor input, it breaks down. Then you find people having to work in 'BS' jobs that don't do anything except spread the wealth around.

A UBI is one way to solve this problem. Another would be for businesses to pay their workers enough that they don't have to waste time on BS to earn enough money to live.

Henry Ford on instituting the 5-day week
"The harder we crowd business for time the more efficient it becomes. The more well-paid leisure workmen get the greater become their wants. These wants soon become needs. Well-managed business pays high wages and sells at low prices. Its workmen have the leisure to enjoy life and the wherewithal with which to finance that enjoyment.
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Yet another way would be to make all businesses cooperatives, with the profits shared between the workers. That way any labor-saving techniques would automatically result in higher wages and/or shorter hours. For this to work properly, everybody would have to be guaranteed a job in some business. One way to do that would be to have the government running businesses.

But that's Socialism. We would never accept it here. We can't have people getting something for nothing. That would just make them lazy, and be unfair on hard-working capitalists (who employ others to do the work so they can enjoy their leisure time - a totally different thing!).
 
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Orphia Nay said:
No, the products they sell AND make changes to laws as per what I said that you dismissed.
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You didn't say that in the OP. You added it AFTER I asked the question - as a way to avoid saying that you hadn't even given the issue I reasied a single thought.
 
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