Will unconditional basic income save humanity from rise of robots?


11/18/2016

The United Nations published a new report. According to the paper, more than 65% of workforce in developed countries will lose their jobs due to accelerating technology development during the next few years. Workers will simply be replaced by robots and computerized systems.



Kai Schreiber
The report notes that realization of this scenario would require introduction of an unconditional basic income to endow 75% of the population left without work.

Anti-Media previously reported in its forecasts that approximately half of the US workforce may be replaced by automated systems in the next two decades. Another statistical report say that about 1.7 million truck drivers could lose their jobs within a decade.

The UN report notes that we risk facing a "premature deindustrialization" in the world. "Increased use of robots in the developed countries risks to cut the edge to developing countries", - explained the paper.

No less alarming report of the World Bank states: "Proportion of trades that may be influenced by labor automation in developing countries is actually higher than in developed countries, where many of these jobs have already disappeared. Developing countries are advised to respond to the new "breakthrough technologies" with development of digital technologies and creation of "an enabling macro-economic, industrial and social policy."

However, there another question: what do with hundreds of thousands and millions of people who are at risk of losing their job? For example, what about those 1.7 million potentially jobless truck drivers? Philosopher Zoltan Istvan believes that all this will inevitably lead to mass unrest and, ultimately, will result in riots.

"Zoltan is arguing about a century of robots, which can replace humans. He says this is a period when a person will have more opportunities to improve their level of education and level of culture - something that previous generations could not dream about. However, along with this, he is in favor of introduction of unconditional basic income as a method of protection that reduces risk of chaos and disorder, when robotic economy will be in full bloom ", - says Anti-Media.

However, people in developing countries will not be able to count on unconditional basic income. Even if that happens, extremely low standard of living will eclipse all the charm of an affordable vacation and opportunities for business development. 

"These are questions on which we need to find an answer in the next 10 years. The faster, the better. It is better for us, since the oncoming age of automation threatens the very nature of human work. Moreover, it may well require a re-think of human role in the post-industrial society ", - add authors of Zerohedge blog. 

Meanwhile, The Telegraph reports that Elon Musk is encouraging people to hurry and create a system of basic income as artificial intelligence will soon take the majority of industrial niches. He says it will soon deprive blue collars of work and, consequently, income. Even today, robots have been used successfully to perform many operations.

According to the businessman, people have to put up with existence of intelligent machines. Moreover, in the future robots will be able to carry out qualitative and creative work, replacing people in creative professions.