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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.
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.
...have been wrong before. Come to think of it, has he ever been right even if later than predicted?
I think he could well be right, but I also think he has the timeline very wrong. 200 years, sure. 100, maybe, although I'm not convinced. But 20? No, I will bet anything that won't be the case.
In the oil crisis in the early 70s, the prediction was that we were going to all be on non-oil heating and transportation well before the turn of the century. Didn't happen. I think it still will, but things just turn around that quickly. Even seriously disruptive technologies like the steam engine and factory machines took generations to take over. Rum wasn't brewed in a day.
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."
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.
Communism involves ownership of the 'means of production'. Theoretically by 'the workers', in practice by 'the state'.
First, there are almost no workers in Kurtzwell's vision, mostly just recipients. Communism's entire distinction between workers and capital becomes redundant. Second, Kurtzwell was unclear here but I suspect in his vision the AI resources are owned neither by the state nor by the few people working on them - his UBI is probably funded by taxation?
Regardless of formalities, humans become an economical burden in this future. You can see what happens thereafter in all resource-based economies, technically socialist or not - like Russia, Iran or Venezuela.
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?
Socialism tends to run on the assumption that people enjoy working.
Systems tend to run on whatever assumption works for the material benefit of the people in power.
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.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
"Just create money out of thin air. "
It already is. It's a human invention, unless you can show it to me in a physics or chemistry textbook? It's like the Matrix, just a consensual hallucination mediated by computers.
Mostly random stuff.
Yes.
I spend a fair bit of time playing the piano. A midi file or a recording could probably do it better, but the challenge is in the creation and the accomplishment is being able to say "I can finally play that one."
I'll still never be able to play as well as big-name piano players. I know that and don't care since that isn't the point or the objective.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
You keep hearing people talking about the UBI... but who is going to wipe their butts when they are in a Nursing Home? Wipe butts or take a UBI? Which would you take?
How about we start talking about a shorter work week, retirement at 50, longer vacation time first?
Later in human history, it became clear, that the ability to easily count and store the coins and being able to exchange them at anytime was a different property than the intrinsic value of the precious metals, and both were separated of each other: On one side was the money, easily to count and to store and to exchange. And the other thing was the precious metal, now again a good like every other good as it was before the invention of coinage.
In fact, money is just an abstract way to keep track of the amount of goods you have sold, and your ability to buy goods. And thus you can create money out of thin air the same way you can just get a piece of paper and put numbers on it to keep track of the count. What you need is the willingness of all others to respect the way you kept track. Legal tender is nothing else than the state giving out means to keep track and in exchange warrant that the count done with them is respected by the courts.
You can create money out of thin air, but you can't create its value.
Create twice the money, and it will be worth half as much.
Why do you assume that to have "human level AI" you need to physically simulate a human brain down to the level of neurons?
“For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.”
People tend to bring up the "why would anyone work" thing in UBI discussions all the time. The thing is UBI is supposed to be basic (that's the B). A UBI where everyone gets $80k/year wouldn't work (not until everything is 100% automated anyway). Most schemes talk about something around $10k/year. Enough to survive but with very little left for anything extra. Want a nice car? Fancy vacations? Private school for your kids? Then you will work.
UBI just makes the welfare system simpler, ensures it is easier for people to get the help they need and prevents poverty traps where it makes more sense not to work because losing access to welfare would leave you worse off. It also removes the need for a minimum wage on top of that. Lastly it helps to take care of the ~10% of the population that has an IQ of under ~85 and is therefore pretty much impossible to employ in a way that is a net gain in productivity. Right now most welfare systems require you to look for work (if you are able bodied) in order to qualify, which leaves a number of unemployable people bouncing from job to job just to get fired over and over, costing productivity for no gain. UBI would also remove this inefficiency.