What do you think?
I think in the face of AI taking over many tasks, we need to rethink about how we frame the future of society. Reframing Universal Basic Income as Automation Compensation means presenting the policy as a way to make up for jobs and income lost due to automation and AI. Instead of viewing UBI as a general welfare payment, it becomes seen as compensation paid to everyone for the value automation creates, supporting those whose work is replaced by machines and helping everyone share in productivity gains. Especially in the US, the average person doesn’t like the idea of someone getting something that they’re personally not receiving. So framing it as a compensation that everyone receives regardless of employment status I think is the only feasible way forward.
I fully agree with this, but I’m of the belief that in order to fund it, we need to tax the “labor” that companies are saving with AI. If a company names profit normally with humans, they are creating a system in which the government is getting paid twice, once on the income of the company and once on the income of the people. But if AI just takes half of that away, the country is missing out on trillions of tax dollars.
So what’s the plan? Require all companies to disclose their electric bills and what they used that power for. If it’s AI? Tax them a rate dependent on the size of the company and the size of the AI portion. This has the additional benefit of incentivizing companies to simply hire people again.
This will never happen but I can dream.