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Kurzweil Predicts Universal Basic Incomes Worldwide Within 20 Years (hackernoon.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the I'd-like-to-buy-the-world-a-Coke dept.

Google's director of engineering Ray Kurzweil made a startling prediction at the 2018 TED conference. Hacker Noon reports: "In the early 2030s, we'll have universal basic income in the developed world, and worldwide by the end of the 2030s. You'll be able to live very well on that. The primary concern will be meaning and purpose," he said onstage at the annual event...

Kurzweil believes that by 2029, computers will have human-level intelligence. It's not inconceivable then that AI will be distributing UBI to humans based on algorithms that are capable of crunching numbers in ways we cannot follow. Indeed, what we call the "State" in even just 10 years time may have been transformed by AI and blockchain tech in a way whereby even our experience of consensus decision making and democracy itself may have evolved.

3 of 307 comments (clear)

  1. Even if we agreed we wanted it by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Funny

    I admire his optimism. Even if we agreed we wanted it exactly at this moment, it would take 20 years to finally agree on how we'd want it to look. One side would be arguing, "Only the private sector can operate the program efficiently! Contract it out!" The other side would be saying, "I will burn my bra if it's not single-payer! Because that's what we have in Europe!" And a small, but attention grabbing group would say, "the whole thing needs to follow the Bitcoin-standard!" Because gold-standard is so 20th century.

    Then some clown (probably Steve Urkel) would somehow get elected and unexpectedly negotiate a peace with the robots.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  2. Renewable quantum atomic blockchain! by Chelloveck · · Score: 5, Funny

    I was taking him seriously up until "blockchain". Once he said that I knew he'd gone senile.

    --
    Chelloveck
    I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
    1. Re:Renewable quantum atomic blockchain! by Type44Q · · Score: 4, Funny

      Once he said that I knew he'd gone senile.

      Like I said, we've reached "Peak Kurzwel" (there's a reason wishful thinking possesses the distinctive bouquet of shit).