Comment by colesantiago

6 days ago

There will be more net new jobs out there thanks AI creating abundance.

Universal Basic (and High) Income will most likely ease this transition.

There will not be any universal income. That's a discourse so people don't act early on it despite the hundreds of problems already found.

  • Unfortunately I agree with your assessment.

    From my POV (jaded early-40s tech dropout, electrician); the joke on jobsites back when Andrew Yang campaigned (Presidentially with UBI as a platform policy) was:

    >We're either going to have to have Universal Basic Income, or send a bunch of young men off to die in foreign wars – and leadership won't ever voluntarily implement UBI, so I guess it's time for a bunch of dudes to die.

    [here we are, six year later]

    Maybe the datacenter jobsites are a bit too morbid, but I was really hoping that UBI would've been possible (by now), one pandemic later. We even got (surprise MFers!) LLMs to help with re-distributions... and all we got was a trillionaire!

    • They are not even ashamed anymore to say that they are doing that for profit. It is our fault to grab on weapons to kill other fathers and families. It is only about oil. Get any young adult, they have been brainwashed to think it is someone else's fault

      3 replies →

Will AI create abundance for everyone though? I can certainly see how it would benefit both business owners (no more annoying office employees!) and blue collar workers (cheap professional services for everyone!), but it's hard to see how it would benefit most white collar middle class folks, who spend most of their time moving information around.

My guess based on previous transitions is that the "net new jobs" will benefit the next generation, not the current one.

OP's issue isn't an AI issue though - it's a "working in PR&Comms in a relatively stagnant economy" issue.

The owners of these companies would be the ones taking hammers to the machines if UBI was ever more than a wild pipe dream being suggested by unpopular political aspirants.

They are addicted to wealth and aren’t willing to share.

  • >owners of these companies would be the ones taking hammers to the machines if UBI was ever more than a wild pipe dream

    I was a union sparkie (IBEW) early in my electrician career, and it always surprised me just how much money companies will spend to break any attempts at unionization – I live near USA's only VW facility, and they recently got their Union (3rd attempt in decades) – millions and millions of dollars – leading one to ponder the great question:

    "Why would companies spend so much money on union-busting (often more than membership would cost!) if it weren't to their advantage to do so?

Healthcare is still considered a "communist" opinion for a significant percentage of Americans. There are politicians in the current administration that think children shouldn't have free lunch at school.

But, somehow, they will implement UBI.