AndreaApr 12
Max Leibman

When AI boosters talk about universal basic income to excuse all of the jobs they claim they can eliminate, ask:

“Then why are you working on AI, and not on universal basic income?”

If you are a journalist in this space and you don’t ask this every time UBI comes up, you are not doing your job.

Apr 12 at 1:36amWeb
Show threadMax LeibmanApr 12

“Well, we need AI to create the super-abundance to support UBI.”

Is that the AI you’re creating? The super-abundance–enabling UBI AI?

Is that how you’re pitching your AI to your enterprise customers?

Show threadMoss WizardApr 12
@maxleibman I think there are two basic categories of these people: grifters who will say anything, and religious true believers. The first group are just liars, and “journalists” today think their whole job is to repeat what they’re told. The second group really does think that the “AI” will solve all of humanity’s problems, it just has to become sentient first, and they think that has to come at *any* cost, no matter how cruel. Journalists think that’s fine because their bosses say so.
Show threadLRApr 12
@Moss @maxleibman "the cost is your firstborn" - "whatever it takes bro AGI stonks!"
Show threadTroyApr 12
@maxleibman the whole thing breaks apart when you ask whose buying it if no one has a job.
Show threadO.VoãoApr 12
@maxleibman Before we get to UBI, I wonder how they'd propose to charge their AI to fund social welfare. Through a special tax for AI companies? Or by taxing the use of AI? Or by taxing the power consumption needed to run AI? Or some other taxes? Because, well, we wouldn't need to wait for the distant future to implement such taxes.
Show threadDBApr 12
@maxleibman One could end the phrase instead with: “you’re a fucking hack pushing an agenda, not a journalist.”
Show threadGhostOnTheHalfShellApr 12

@maxleibman

I think real people understand that the words that come out out of their mouths are just things that are used to placate people.

Such ideas should be given the same weight as hyper loop

Show threadD2Apr 12

@maxleibman personally, I expect UBI will fall thru the cracks just like ‘make those who lose their jobs whole, using the savings trade liberalism generates’ from neoliberalism fell thru the cracks.

Oligarchs: 💰ka-ching! Oops, forgot to do that part.

Show threadAllan ChowApr 12
@maxleibman how can it be their responsibility to be ethical when there is no government policy to hold them accountable? It is obviously someone else's responsibility to ensure that their actions achieve the desired outcome!
Show threadSimplicatorApr 12
@maxleibman Same thing with companies making robots etc. to displace manual labor. “Oh so you’ve got a full campaign running to change the country to a 4-day workweek? No? Huh.”
Show threadSwiftApr 12

@maxleibman 100%! UBI and 4 day weeks etc are social decisions; they don't need a particular technology.

AI is at best a product for making investors and billionaires richer. These folk are NOT interested in paying you NOT to work.

At worst, AI is a political device aiding the dismantling of democracy and state; again quite counter to notions of UBI.

Show threadTimothy WolodzkoApr 12
@maxleibman I’d rather ask who would pay the universal income. If AI takes your job and salary, I guess the AI company would pay you, right? They wouldn’t take the money and evade to tax heaven, right..?
Show threadSteve F.Apr 12
@tymwol @maxleibman this is correct, but it requires the AI company to be owned by the people, not an individual, so that its gains can benefit to everyone. The ages old question of who owns the means of production.
Show threadVerđandi K SoldustyApr 12
@maxleibman
If you expect corporations to be responsible for UBI then you've not understood what UBI is.
If corporations are responsible it would be CBI. This is Mastodon, so I assume most can work out what the C stands for.
For it to be UBI it has to come from the state, funded through taxes on those multimillion / bilion-aires & their corporations.
Make paying shareholders illegal, after all, the point of a shareholder should be, to support a new (or ongoing) business that the shareholders believe in, not the other way round as it is today.
Show threadMax LeibmanApr 12
@Soldusty “If you expect corporations to be responsible for UBI then you've not understood what UBI is.”

You’ve not understood my post. Good day.
Show threadVerđandi K SoldustyApr 12
@maxleibman
Then please clarify as it's clearly not clear to everyone.
Maybe I've simply mid interpreted "AI boosters" 🤷 as they tend to be the corporations. Anything not to have to pay people to do the job.
Show threadMax LeibmanApr 12
@Soldusty AI boosters are people who promote AI, whether they are selling it, covering it journalistically, or advocating it as enthusiasts. This is how virtually everyone uses the term. That they are often working in corporations doesn’t mean they couldn’t do otherwise (or that corporations themselves can’t work on social problems and lobby for government action—they do so all the time, just not usually in this sort pro-social direction).

I said nothing about corporations providing UBI, nor is that leap is not implied. You made a wildly bad-faith reading of my post in order to insult me, which I do not appreciate.
Show threadVerđandi K SoldustyApr 12

@maxleibman
Just reread your posts & realise that I did completely misinterpret them.
I'm very sorry & clearly having a hard of thinking day.

Thank you for taking the time to explain, I can edit my list to point out that I'm a complete dunderhead or delete? Whichever you prefer.
Again, sorry for being the twat.

Show threadMax LeibmanApr 12
@Soldusty Thank you, I appreciate the apology. You can leave them up or delete or edit as you see fit.
Show threadMarta ThreadbareApr 12
@maxleibman also the concept that the state should be out of the way and minimal and at the same time it should subsidize everything they don't want to pay.
Show threadChristine Lemmer-WebberApr 16
@maxleibman The other key question to ask is "This sounds like social services normally funded through taxes. Where does the money for UBI come from? I presume it comes from taxing generated wealth?"
Show threadChristine Lemmer-WebberApr 16
@maxleibman "Especially generated wealth developed through the productivity gains developed by this technology?"
Show threadChristine Lemmer-WebberApr 16

@maxleibman What has been the case, and continues to be the case for over a decade, is that technocrats use UBI as a promise to distract from the idea that we should be doing exactly that, funding social services through taxation. Instead, the mechanism is left eternally vague.

We know UBI, as in guaranteed income, has lead to enormous improvements in social structure when it has been made available. The money will come from *somewhere*, but where?

(I know you already agree, just expanding)

Show threadMax LeibmanApr 16
@cwebber Exactly right. It’s a handwave.
Show threadMax LeibmanApr 16
@cwebber Also, I’m glad you expanded on it, because you have inspired me to formulate something I don’t think I have quite put together before:

There is a world of difference between people who promote UBI as a way to address income inequality versus people who promote UBI to excuse income inequality. The letter group have no interest in actually seeing it implemented.
Show threadcraignicolApr 16
@maxleibman @cwebber if they believed in the former I'm sure they'd support policies like that of the Green Party here where executive pay would be capped to 10x the lowest paid worker.
Show threaddanwwilson Apr 17
@maxleibman @otfrom @cwebber I always thought of UBI as the greatest potential to give people agency over crappy employers. A safety net to try something new and allow true innovation, not just VC funded privilege innovation. Oh, geez I wish Australia had it. Not for me at the moment, but for so many others with great ideas but no safety net to live while starting.
Show threadChristine Lemmer-WebberApr 16

@maxleibman The fun thing is that Sam Altman got more "specific" recently in the most hilarious way possible. Here's how you make UBI! Give people free tokens to spend on OpenAI! Tokens are the new currency! https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-tokens-ai-ubi-universalbasic-income-2026-3

And, uh, the government should be investing in those companies too and, you know, clear the way through "Accelerating Grid Expansion" https://cdn.openai.com/pdf/561e7512-253e-424b-9734-ef4098440601/Industrial%20Policy%20for%20the%20Intelligence%20Age.pdf

Not rich as Croesus *enough*? Why not become Croesus! Now you're thinking!

Jensen Huang floated AI tokens as part of engineers' compensation. Sam Altman says they could one day be a form of universal basic income.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang claimed the title of "Token King. In the future, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sees these building blocks of AI as a major resource.

Business Insider
Show threadcraignicolApr 16
@cwebber @maxleibman I'm sure all those landlords and grocery stores that accept bitcoin will take payment in chat-tokens real soon now
Show threadVincent SparksApr 16
@craignicol @cwebber @maxleibman but a bitcoin doesn't have an intrinsic value! a token does! it'll be just like moving back to the gold standard, just so long as all of these AI companies stay in business and we as a society are okay with effectively treating them like banks.
Show threadmccApr 16

@cwebber @maxleibman What i don't understand is if we go to a post-labor existence because AI is doing all the work for us… then who does the incredible amount of work of mining the oil/building the solar panels to run the AI, and creating the GPUs to run the AI, and doing the enormous amount of person-hours of human tagging and moderation required to create and operate the models

It's not clear to me "AI" requires less human labor than "doing it without AI". The human labor is just paid less.

Show threadSteve Karsch 🤘🏻Apr 16
@mcc @cwebber @maxleibman @aburka Also, if the workers are paid less/not working, where does tax revenue come from? Corporations??? /mumbles something about swamp land and the Brooklyn bridge. 🙄
Show threadStanley Nerdlinger IIApr 16
@mcc @cwebber @maxleibman
Robots! That’s Elon’s vision. Try microdosing acid and some ketamine, you’ll come to the same conclusion 😉
Show threadShannon ClarkApr 16

@mcc @cwebber @maxleibman it is part of a trend to shift jobs from direct employees to people who work for someone else (and thus don’t get equity, bonuses, career paths or benefits). It’s all a continuum from offshoring/outsourcing to gig work to now “AI” where the fantasy of these bros and their investors is the workerless business which has no workers it has to pay or care about.

It’s all a fantasy driven in part by an obsession about revenues per worker and ignoring any purpose investor $

Show threadStanley Nerdlinger IIApr 16
@mcc @cwebber @maxleibman
It’s simple. They’ll just tax the UBI to pay for the UBI!
Show threadNull HypothesisApr 18
@mcc @cwebber @maxleibman
Feels like the missing word here is: precariat.
Show threadOh 2 tenApr 16
@cwebber @maxleibman I'd take an arcade token over this stupid token. LOL
Show threadThe Orange ThemeApr 16
@cwebber @maxleibman Imagine reinventing scrip but the company store doesn't even sell food.
Show threadWalrus 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿Apr 16

@cwebber @maxleibman

Simple.

Governments CREATE the money.

Show threadWalrus 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿Apr 17

@cwebber @maxleibman

Taxation just sucks up the surplus.

Show threadcraignicolApr 16
@cwebber @maxleibman ask them how much more tax they'd be willing to pay personally (or via taxes on their business) to bring about this UBI
Show threadJames EndicottApr 16
@maxleibman

The job of tech journalists is to churn out as much crap as possible that will generate ad revenue. Access journalism holds that all together.
Show threadTroikaFox🦊Apr 17

@maxleibman

very well said ... boosted 👍🏾