Elon Musk - It Will Be Universal High Income

so this video is going to be discussing something that Elon Musk recently talked about on Twitter he basically spoke on Twitter about Universal basic income and introduced a rather New Concept which is quite confusing because overall it doesn't really make sense and in this video I might make the argument with as to why Elon musk's Universal High income isn't really a thing at all so let me know because I know this video might be a little bit controversial but I think once you at least watch it first you're going to understand why this does make sense from my point of view and why Universal High income isn't really a thing so Elon Musk tweeted in the future there will be Universal High income not basic in a positive AI Future No scarcity except that which we Define to be scarce in that scenario everyone can have whatever goods and services they want and it is less clear how we will find meaning in a world where work is less optional now there's a lot to digest here because there is a lot that was said of course one of the first you know controversial things is that he said income will be high and not basic in a positive AI future an article I was reading also discussed this and basically said that just because the income is high it doesn't mean that it will actually work because there are some fears around Universal B basic income because some people believe that basic income will be a trap in the sense that the government gives you a basic income and you'll have no way to work/ earn money now this is something that I'm going to get into later but of course no scar it I do believe that this could potentially happen in the Far Future but if we take a look at how Society is divided up right now we can see that food is abundant yet many people do not have enough food to eat all the time and we waste trillions of pound/dollar of food per year so this is definitely a hopeful scenario and I'm not saying that you need to be a dorest in the sense that you need to think that the future is dystopian but you also need to be a realist in how resources might actually be distributed and of course yes I do believe that it is going to be less clear on how we find meaning in a world where work is optional that is going to be very confusing for many people including myself now with regards to Universal High income Elon Musk has discussed this on a podcast with UK prime minister rishy sunak so I'm going to show you guys this clip here what would your kind of observation be on AI and the impact on labor markets and people's jobs and how they should feel about that as they think about this well I think we are seeing the most disruptive force in history here um you know where we have for the first time we will something that is smarter than the smartest human um and that I mean it's hard to say exactly what that moment is but there will come a point where no job is needed you can have a job if you want to have a job for sort of personal satisfaction but the AI will be able to do everything so I don't know if that makes people comfortable uncomfortable it's it's you know that's why I say if you if you wish for a magic Genie that gives you any wishes you want and there's no limit you don't have this three limit three wish limit in nonsense you just have many as many wishes as you want um so uh it's both good and bad um one of the challenges in the future will be how do we find meaning in life if you have a magic Genie that can do everything you want I I do think we it's it's hard you know when when there's new technology it tends to have usually follow an S curve in this case we're going to be on the exponential portion of the S curve for a long time um you like you'll be able to ask for anything it won't be and we won't have Universal basic income we'll have Universal High income so in some sense it'll be somewhat of a leveler um or an equalizer you know because really I think everyone will have access to this magic Genie um and you're able to ask any question it'll be certainly be good for Education you could it'll be the best tutor you could and the most patient tutor uh sit there all day um and uh there will be no shortage of goods and services will be an age of abundance um I think if I'd recommend people read uh in Banks the banks culture books are probably the best envisioning in fact not probably they're definitely by far the best envisioning of an AI future um there's nothing even close so I'd recommend really recommend Banks so essentially what Elon Musk is discussing there at the last part of course he's discussing Ian Banks the culture Series this is a series of books that actually discusses the post AGI future where resources and things of that nature essentially the basis of this article here is basically stating that look believing that Ubi needs to be high Fosters a poor understanding of how Universal basic income Works which is what I want to try and correct here Ubi is a flaw it's a foundation and all income is earned on top of it for example if your income is now $50,000 a year then a $115,000 Ubi would mean that your income before taxes is bumped up to $65,000 a year and I think this is very true Ubi doesn't need to be high it just needs to be a flaw that essentially just stops poverty I think that whilst yes

there does need to be some level of inequality and when I say some there's a Nuance in the some meaning that people don't need to literally be struggling to find clothing and food and basic needs but I do believe that there needs to be an aspect of people that provide these goods and services and are rewarded for that and this article actually speaks about how you know Elon Musk doesn't want people to fear the automation that he intends to sell through and how Elon Musk has expressed repeatedly that he doesn't see Ubi as something to do now but instead after a lot of jobs have been automated however this article is actually really on point because it's basically stating that what is the point about doing it later when we need to be doing it right now because people are already impacted by Ai and robots this article continues to basically state that Ubi is something that we should have gotten going back decades ago in the 1970s before computerization took off and these killed wage growth and if you don't know what I mean by that think about how back in the day your parents could have easily afforded a house based on one person salary and now you need like two people working two jobs in order to afford a simple down payment and of course the $50 trillion in the New Economic wealth was mostly diverted into the hands of the top 1% of Americans he continues to state that it's important to understand that between that right now and some unknown future date where technology has increased unemployment in a way considered finally sufficient for Ubi to be implemented by those like Elon the impact will continue being what it's always been inequality will rise people like El on will get much richer and for those who lose their jobs they'll find new ones some people will find jobs that pay more but many potentially most less and this article I must agree is quite aggressive for Ubi he goes on to State here and this is going to be the final Point how does high inequality need to get before it's considered too high if unemployment never Rises to a level considered too high because people are continually able to find new jobs that pay less then when does someone like Elon say it's time for Ubi high or not is there a functioning Society for us to exist in where unemployment at 5% but the majority of the population has jobs that don't sufficiently cost the cover of living or the spended needed to fuel the economy what does that Society look like I think that society looks exactly like ours it's already here we exist in that time with low unemployment and high inequality largely generated from Decades of technological advancement industrial offshoring and tax cuts for the rich what I did also find interesting that Canada is supposedly introducing some you some sort of universal basic income in there was this clip on Twitter where they actually spoke about this to develop a guaranteed livable basic income we are struggling throughout this country with homelessness food insecurity poverty Health mental health issues and this is one way that we could start to look at these issues it's not the only way but it's certainly a key way and I think we've gathered a great deal of data to show the positive consequences of offering people the opportunity half of Canadians are pessimistic about their personal finances a quarter of low income families cannot pay for monthly expenses um there was also this from Deep mind's co-founder who warns governments seriously need to find solutions for people who lose their jobs to AI there's going to be a serious number of losers warned Mustafa suan who helped found Google's AI lab if you're unfamiliar with what that is if you know Google Gemini the chatbot that is from Google deepmind who were essentially acquired by Google so you had deep mind they got bought by Google and Google of course now that they're deep minded they essentially created these chat Bots the point I'm trying to make here is that mustaf suan is not just some random AI researcher this guy is a serious integral part to Google's team or was Google's team he's now at Microsoft leading the head of the AI Division and him ushering such a stark concern stating that there's going to be a serious number of losers I would definitely like to see these world leaders I'm not sure what these guys are talking about I know that sometimes they always have these AI safety Summits so this is actually my point from here at these safety Summits or at these discussions right here you can see in fact you actually can't see let me get you guys a bigger image you can see here Dario amade the CEO of anthropic the company that launched the clap B chatbot Claude you can see Demis aabis the CEO of Google's deep mins lab you can also see Sam mman the CEO of open AI you're not going to get a room with more knowledgeable people in the space of AI but I think they actually spoke about the wrong thing you can see here that this is the same image and this is where they talk about what they spoke about the main thing that they discussed about was that they discussed things about disinformation National Security and existential threats whilst yes these are things that need to be considered why haven't they been discussing about how this is actually going to impact people's future and how there isn't really a safety net for people that lose their careers due to this advance in technology the only thing that they did say was that the Prime Minister and CEOs are committed to work together to ensure Society benefits from such transformation they didn't say that Society is going to be at least not getting the negative effects from this transformation in terms of job loss why

isn't this something that they are addressing you can also see here that the UK prime minister launches a new AI safety Institute and he says our AI safety Institute will be acting as a Global Hub on AI safety leading vital Research into the capabilities and risks of this fast moving technology whil yes once again these things are good I would love to see these governments and these individuals actually focus on something that's going to impact people because whilst yes if AI robots do take over nobody's going to be alive anyways but I think that many people losing their careers and livelihoods to Ai and thrust into a never-ending spiral of poverty is something that is more of a concern the reason I also want these governments to start actually thinking about these kinds of issues right now is because this is something that you do want to do sooner rather than later you don't want chat tp6 to be dropped and then of course governments are scrambling to sort of figure out how these companies are going to pay their Severance packages or how they're going to explain that they're firing literally half of their companies because sector workers whose jobs are automated away thanks to the Advent of AI and other Technologies so this is something that I think these governments actually need to start thinking about now because the problem is that governments usually wait until the last minute to do something and by then the solution is pretty slap Dash so I would say that these governments actually need to work together with these AI companies in order to essentially make sure that they can delay the release of these models because of course like I said before focusing on AI safety doesn't help the average person but ensuring that these models are delayed so that Society can have the sign to actually transition is going to be something that is integral for ensuring people are completely screwed over by this technology the solution is we need to be better at Distributing the fruits of this technology to everybody buy something sometimes called a universal basic income although I don't like that word basic because it suggests that people will just have a quite a low quality of life I prefer to think of it as a universal generous income not a Ubi but a u gii because although it may not be very large in absolute terms it will be enough for us to have a very good quality of life why because all the things that we'll need whether it's Healthcare or education whether it's accommodation food uh com consumer goods so many of them will be available at much lower costs than ever before how thanks to automation thanks to the improvements in technology so overall let me know what you thought about this do you think Universal basic income is going to be enough do you think there needs to be a different you know thing that people need to think about and do you think Universal High income even makes sense but overall I do know that these governments need to actually start thinking about this and because of course governments are going to be I've taken the initiative to start my community which is post AGI preparedness this is a community where we discussed many of the different things there it's pretty interesting so if you'd like to check out the scho community I recently made a 22-page guide on which of the best sectors you want to be investing in/ companies to actually benefit from the AGI AI Revolution and I made a pretty comprehensive guide on how to actually prepare for AGI and prepare yourself so that you aren't innovated away and you still have a long-lasting career in the world of AI