As the global economy modernizes, there is some concern that automatons, artificial intelligence, and other technologies may increasingly replace human workers. Indeed that issalready happening. You have no doubt stood in front of a “self check out” ore received a robo sales call in the recent past. There are those that argue that such adaptations both create and destry jobs but on balance, many agree that the net change will be negative. In fact, the BCC reported in 2019 that up to 20 million factory jobs could be replaced by robots by 2030. It takes a lot of robot repair people to offset that.
Obviously, some jobs are more at risk than others of being replaced by automation. The Economist sees Food preparation, construction, cleaning and driving as key targets (see image). As an example, it likely seems plausible to you to imagine truck drivers being replaced by what is already viable self-driving vehicles. And Cruise ships are already featuring robotic bartenders.
In response to this growing trend, some policy makers, economists or other officials have argued that people will find it increasingly difficult to contribute to society through work as more and more of it is done with out human input. And without access to wages, they will be unable to support themselves and their families.
To counter this (and for other reasons), governments around the world have considered the implementation of a Universal Basic Income…an unconditional wage (not requiring work) paid in cash (so as to allow recipients to convert that to whatever they want) to all people at the individual level (not just specific groups or household heads).
According to the Stanford Basic Income Lab there have been nearly 40 experiments with UBI either already concluded or still underway or proposed. For example, Finland’ Basic IncomeExperiment (2017-2018) gave 2000 randomly selected recipients €560 monthly regardless of their work status. Results showed mental well being improved, stronger financial security, better mental health, and heightened trust in institutions. The amount that recipients worked was not generally affected. In fact, a summary of such experiments would likely show that reduction in work for recipients of such funding are modest.
That brings us to the work at hand.
