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

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.

Comments

Re:Rationality is not rewarded

[Kohath]

Because if you don't work, then someone else has to work for you, against their will. How else will food get into your hands? Even if you imagine robots doing all the farming and delivery, someone had to make the robots.

Also, if you don't do anything for anyone, WTF good are you?

Raise you hands!

[mschuyler]

If you have actually read "The age of Intelligent Machines,' please raise your hand. if you have actually read "The Age of Spiritual Machines," please raise your hand. If you have actually read 'The Singularity is Near," please raise your hand. See the problem here? A whole lot of critical comments, but very few raised hands. The man has a phenomenal success rate when it comes to his predictions, but overall you (plural) have no idea what he actually said. You just read what someone else said about what he said, and from those comments, you draw your conclusions. If you had actually read what Kurzweil wrote and observed his success rate (near 90%) you might come to different conclusions. Of course, if you actually knew what you were talking about when it comes to economics you might come to different conclusions, too.

Hmmm.

[jd]

Based on Moore's Law, we won't have human-level AI until the year 3200. (We know the speed of simulating 100,000 neurons in 2014 and we know the speed of simulating 100 neurons in 1985, therefore we can fit the appropriate family of curves.)

Universal Income would work if the total cost of UI minus the increase in revenue generated through more people working minus the administrative cost of the systems you'd no longer need minus the cost of current benefits to be replaced is negative (ie: you're saving more than you're spending).

This is possible, and there's every reason to think it would work that way, but I have not seen any models based on the trials that have been done. Theory can only be based on fact and can only be tested by fact. Anything else belongs in the category of religion.