Back in the mists of time, in 2018, in this paper, I made the case that Basic Income was urgently needed, but to be (a) politically viable, (b) implemented at a meaningful financial level sufficient to raise a family and lead a dignified retirement of about $75K/year, and (c) worth doing to help our civilization solve many problems urgently needing help, it needed to be paired with a requirement to give back to society at a level of about 24 hours a week. Political majorities for implementation would then be easily found.
With AI now coming for jobs of every type at a rapid pace, the paper's arguments seem more urgent than ever. We need to take action very soon. We need a movement around a "socially beneficial BI", which I am calling SBBI, since it is many fewer syllables ;-). Ideally, many mainstream BI supporters would join the movement for an SBBI, and push it over the political hump. I invite you to please help. The need is very urgent, and the goal is very worthwhile.
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If you wish to be more actively involved, please also send an email to me personally at sbbasicincome at gmail dot com with a note on how you would like to help, and I will reach out to invite you to the organizing committee to help move this forward. Here is a very initial list of the items I think we need to start working on, other suggestions welcome:
- Work. Assemble a candidate list of SBBI jobs, in health, education, and the environment, from teaching to helping in hospitals to playing guitar in senior homes etc. etc.
- People. Build the people registration bank where those that wish to help can register for SBBI.
- Matching. Build a proof of concept prototype of the matching engine shown in the graphic above, to enable skills assessment, identification of education and training (possibly provided by others in the SBBI ecosystem), and match people to the SBBI jobs.
- Promotion. Promote the SBBI to governments, non-profits, and other organizations to build the critical mass to move it to widespread implementation.
- Economics. Figure out the very interesting economic implications of the new world coming fast, a world where technology and AI has made it possible for everyone to receive meaningful income, say about $75K a year, making obsolete the need for a permanent povery level underclass. We need some very smart economics experts to start working through this so we can bridge to this new world with minimal disruption, e.g. without runaway inflation. (A Nobel prize winner or two would be welcome. Anyone have contacts with Krugman or Stiglitz?)
The Promise & Limits Of AI
On a related note, AI will be a huge help to SBBI in automating work and freeing up human capital, and we should embrace it. However, to be comfortable with using AI as a tool, it will be helpful to understand that there are extremely important areas in which it will never exceed us.
In short, the difference between humans and AI is not analytical. AI will become smarter than us at almost everything, if not there already. The difference between us is biological, arising from the capability our nervous system provides humans to be immersively integrated with the physical reality from which we are made. Without a biological nervous system, AI will never be able to feel emotion, therefore feel suffering or love, therefore understand the difference between right and wrong, and therefore be truly conscious in a meaningfully ethical sense.
In other words, AI systems may be able to analyze what is funny, but they will never be able to laugh. They may be able to analyze what is sad, but they will never be able to cry. And that makes all the difference. I expand on these insights in my paper The Human Biological Advantage Over AI, available in PDF here and online here. Let us use AI to help free humanity to pursue our rightful destiny, without fear.
- William Stewart