Four influential figures shared their thoughts on UBI (Universal Basic Income) and I think all four had valid points.
Two were for it, Elon Musk and politician Andrew Yang, and two were against it, political commentator Ben Shapiro and psychologist and commentator Jordan Peterson.
Let's start with Elon Musk. The CEO of Tesla made it clear that he's not in favour or against UBI, he simply thinks it will become inevitable at some point.
"[In the future], there will be fewer and fewer jobs that a robot cannot do better," Musk said. "Mass unemployment will be a massive social challenge. [And] I think UBI will become necessary."
Musk added that the much harder challenge will be to figure out a way to make people feel useful because, as he notes, a "lot of people derive their meaning from their labour."
Moving on we've got Andrew Yang, 2020 candidate for the Democratic party.
Andrew Yang points out that the average American is a "high school guy" and 1 in 2 people in the US work one of the five most common jobs (administrative work, food prep, truck driving, manufacturing, sales).
He adds that AI is "already doing a number on all five jobs", especially, he adds, clerical work which includes things like call centers, which are being replaced by robots.
Yang suggest that the idea that you can retrain workers in these sectors, considering their median age and the fact that statistically only 32% of them went to college, is unfeasible.
During the same podcast, Joe Rogan (who was interviewing Yang) agreed that it would be "preposterous to think you can retrain truck drivers and teach them something as difficult as computer language".
Andrew Yang noted that "unfortunately we're gonna get to a point where AI can do some basic coding".
Side note, this interview is from three years ago and we're actually already there. AI can code.
Third, we have Jordan Peterson.
Peterson stated that he's not against it and doesn't argue against the merits of UBI.
However, he points out that based on his work experience and studies, he believes that "a substantial proportion of the population would destroy themselves istantly with a guaranteed annual income. They'd do it because they're very impulsive."
He refers to, in particular, to drug addicts and potential drug addicts. He added "if you have money and you have something to do, you have a life. If you just have money, you don't have a life".
Lastly we have Ben Shapiro, who argues that the record for UBI hasn't been successful and he believes that the idea only makes sense "under the supposition that there's a group of legitimate unemployable."
Shapiro says he's skeptical of that line of thought because it "has been said about any major technological development. It is true in the short term, not true in the long term."
Just like Peterson and Musk, Shapiro believes that UBI still wouldn't solve the issue of people needing to be useful to society, which they wouldn't feel if "we just signed them a blank check".
The country I was born in tried UBI for a while and it didn't work at all. Five years later, unemployment numbers have gone up significantly because people are incentivized not to work.
In addition to that, the UBI costs my country $9 billion a year on average. And then there's the issue of fraud. With UBI, you're always going to have people who work their way around the rules to claim it even though they don't know it.
What are your thoughts on UBI?
Also, please find the full video down below.
