Disclaimer: I am a positive person.

Every time I sit down and think about the future, it's scary. For me, it all started when a bunch of very smart people began to debate (and largely support) a concept called Universal Basic Income. In short, UBI is the idea that the government should just pay people for being alive. This is not social security or medicare-- this is just paying everyone for having a heartbeat. Every month you just get a check from the government no matter what.

How can that make any sense? And why are some of the worlds most successful capitalists arguing for this?

It's blatantly obvious that over the next 10-25 years, we are going to lose an absolute **** ton of jobs.

Right now there are about 150m people employed in the US. A third of them:

- 4.1M operate motor vehicles
- 9.2M work in "production occupations" (assemblers, bakers, plastic/metal workers, etc)
- 6.5M work in construction
- 4.2M are office/admin support (includes data entry, mail clerk, etc)
- 3.4M are financial clerks (bill/account collectors, book keeping, people behind the cage at the Bellagio, etc)
- 8.7M work in retail sales
- 7M work in the food service industry (cooks, servers, etc)
- 1.3M are in legal occupations (425k of them in legal support roles)
- 7.5M are in business and operations specialists (buyers, appraisers, market research analysts, etc)

Feel free to scan (its from 2014): https://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_102.htm


Our gov't projects that we will go from 150M jobs now to 160M jobs in 2024.

If I go through all the jobs today in the US, it's likely to me that at least half of them will be impacted somewhat by automation/robots/AI. So many of these jobs in the US are not very hard, and will be automated away. And it could happen at a very fast pace. How many jobs are there today that you are completely confident will exist in 25 years? It's harder than you think. Even something like computer programming might become something where a lot of low level programmers are not needed in 25 years.

In my career in finance/wall street/hedge fund land, I can safely say that I am absolutely sure there is not one career totally safe. How will the world access capital, get m&a advice, trade, invest in 25 years? I have no clue-- it could be way different than today and there could be a ton less people in the profession. It could largely be the same. In your career are you confident about the next 25 years?

So are we going to live in a world where the rich get very rich, companies do very well as they replace humans with cheap computers, and the poor lose a lot of jobs? And do we solve it by just giving everyone UBI? That seems like an utterly depressing place to live. Super monster companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Comcast, taking over the world and becoming wildly profitable, while we lose tons of jobs.

But it's pretty clear when:
- Cars drive themselves (3-5 years?)
- You can walk into Walmart and just grab whatever you want and walk out and get billed automatically (2-4 years?)
- You can go into a restaurant and order your food on an ipad and it is brought out by a machine (and maybe prepared by a machine?) (already starting to happen-- check out Newark Airport)
- Robots can do heavy construction work themselves (5-10 years?)
- Most admin roles are replaced by software (5-10 years)
- Most basic legal work is replaced by software (3-5 years)
- Most market research is replaced by software (now? sort of kidding, but 5 years?)
- Most IT functions are easily outsourced in the cloud (starting now)

And on and on... That there's going to be some serious pain.

Think about all the people that lost their jobs in the last 10 years in this country (in steel, coal, auto manufacturing, etc). Pittsburgh, Detroit, West Virginia are all still impacted by the changes. Our current president is only in office because he did a great job appealing to those upset voters. But the jobs we lost in steel, coal, auto add up to less than 1M jobs lost. We are talking about 50M+ jobs.

Phil Knight, founder of Nike, gave an interesting interview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brkdw_5umYY) where he said that Nike might be building manufacturing back in the US soon. But that it wasn't good news for the U.S. as it would be all automated. How is China/Vietnam/etc. going to do if suddenly we don't make/build all our stuff there and we can just have machines/robots build it here? Could be max pain out there.

It's going to get ugly. Amazon will be the enemy of the people. One day people are going to wake up and see Amazon in a much different light. People will ask the government to stop them-- will that happen? When John D. Rockefeller took over the U.S. (he was 2% of U.S. GDP himself) the government split his company up into 34 separate companies. Will our government stop Amazon? Amazon sales are on track for close to $300B by 2020, or what will be something like 2% of our GDP.

Figuring out the stock market also seems quite challenging. It seems like investing in companies that will be able to replace humans with machines seems like a good bet. But it also seems probable in those industries that pricing will come way down. Say you run a trucking company and a large cost for you is truck drivers. Yes, now you wont have to pay a trucker if the truck drives itself = mad profit. However, the cost of trucking should now plummet. Net net do you come out ahead? Not sure. But the trucker who used to make $80k but now (maybe) gets UBI for just staying home will certainly be worse off. Just think about a world where no one works, and just gets $$ from the government. You can visit Dubai for a preview of that. All the residents just hang out at the mall all day. Hardly any non-immigrant works. I just cant picture America like that.

At the end of the day, I think our best hope is that these changes happen slowly and we can adapt as a society. But if it happens quickly, I just don't see how it can end well. We all should be focusing on training people for jobs that have a chance to stand up in the face of automation.

Am I just a worry wart?

No Y2K is real and nobody has the problem solving talents to stop it. WAAF.

We already have a 4 page thread on the front page titled "Replacing People with Robots" just to give you an idea of the types of responses you will receive.

I have never been to Dubai, but if the worst-case scenario of UBI is that people are hanging out at the mall all day? Sign me up homie. If you're telling me I don't have to worry about working cus my bills and health is paid for, I'll be chasing that a** all day and night!

whoops I didnt even see that. I dont really read BFI anymore, I'll check it out.

Yes, UBI is the main solution and it's all in BFI.

What? A useless class of people who live off government hand outs of grain, watch chariot races all day and are ruled over by goofy inbred families?

That can never happen.

Not really. It just changes what types of engineers need to be employed by a specific company. Amazon and Google will maintain their cloud, but you still have to manage what's in the cloud.

Yes, the mix of the engineers will change though. Did you get upset because all of those mainframe engineers lost their demand years ago?

But this is already what happens. You're already on UBI, and don't seem to hate your life. You produce nothing of worth, you just shift paper around given to you by gullible clowns, so that either (a) your customers lose money or (b) it's a push and your activities were worthless or (c) Some other guy loses money and your customers make money. To a first order approximation, the market is a zero sum game. You do nothing of worth, produce nothing. You'd seem like the last person to complain about UBI and the end of job - you're already living it.

Also, how is UBI any different from owning stock? Or retiring at 40 instead of 60? Plenty of people do that already (passively own stock, don't work) and don't hate life. Only 1/3 of Americans are employed. Are the other 2/3rds miserable ****s?

Don't a lot of people want UBI so that the people being replaced by robots don't go rioting in the streets?

Positive spin: Is it possible with our newfound talents thanks to AI, we can fix problems like poverty, bring up the average IQ, and the average person will get to spend a higher % of their life being enlightened and entertained instead of slaving away at a monotonous job?

(Or the AI sees us as a lesser lifeform and exterminates us so it can put Earth's resources to better use, the same way we exterminated a lot of animals, forests, and ecosystems)

And yeah, +1 to what Tooth said.

Any job that doesn't push forward mankind's capacity to be enlightened and entertained (or reduce the opposite) is technically worthless.

I'm sure we will utilize them before they do anything to us. If we can get androids to build a Dyson Sphere maybe it could solve all of our problems.

I respect your opinions-- not totally sure why you're coming at me so hard but it's all good.

I look at it this way: when you go to whole foods and buy a nice ribeye for 26.50 a pound, the masses are benefitting from the price discovery work a few are doing. If that same ribeye was 25 or 27 per lb you probably wouldn't have a very strong opinion on that price change. But you know there are market forces out there so that if the steak was way overpriced, a competitor would likely benefit. In addition, there is a whole chain of farmers, meat packers, distributors and competitors in a chain that allows for somewhat efficient price discovery.

When you buy an index fund it's the same idea. The index fund is not doing much work, but anyone who buys the index fund is benefitting from the work other people are doing who buy undervalued stocks and short overvalued stocks. All day long all of us are benefitting from markets where there is price discovery and people attempting to find inefficiencies in the market.

So when I do tons of work buying options that look undervalued and selling overvalued ones, it benefits anyone who comes in and casually trades options. The more people looking for inefficiencies, the better pricing for everyone. And yes, I am pushing paper to make money for my investors, but that opportunity is what creates better markets for everyone.

I'm not claiming that I'm changing the world. But I moved to OKC three years ago and I invest in local startups, judge investing competitions at OU, and always hire summer interns and invest time and money in them. I've built a team of people and I really do feel like I've been a positive influence in my employees lives. I also have engaged with hundreds of poker players over the years looking to transition out of poker--answering questions and giving advice.

I am not pushing mankind forward but I feel like I do more than most. Props to you if you are the next Elon-- I'm just not.

Saying that I'm on UBI-- where you don't work and get paid--seems like you're taking an unnecessary shot at me. I probably work harder than most.

Fair enough. You must look down on quite a lot of different jobs.

I'm not trying to give you a hard time. It sounds like you have a tremendously positive effect on people around you. I live on permanent holidays and trade - the definition of uselessness. And I do it just for me. I'm not morally judging, just looking at this from a broader angle. I'm sure you work very hard, and I do think the markets have a useful purpose, although you could probably take out half of the hedge funds and nothing would change.

But essentially what's happened as we've gotten better at doing stuff is a mass move to not working, or to doing work which doesn't produce much, like investing. Children used to work in Victorian times. Now, most people don't start working until their 20s, and can stop at 60. 65% of Americans currently do not work. Is society really that different if 20% are replaced with robots, and 85% now don't work? It hardly seems like major social upheaval. Agriculture used to be 60+% of the workforce. Now it's 3% or so. We've move onto other things - massages, interior decorating, holidays, personal financial services like what you do, arts, entertainment, more sports. The bedrock of middle class wealth is already the corporate sector, which is not that different from a passive UBI. A good chunk of Americans retire earlier and in more comfort living off the back of socially owned corporate efficiency dividends.

So I don't see a huge upheaval. Being able to do and make more stuff, and better, has rarely - ever? - been a problem. It's going the other way that sucks.

Sorry, that did come across as pretty snobby (fwiw I think I'm a useless human being).

I guess a more optimistic way to look at it is that a lot of lives and jobs end up being useless, but with each child born — and each life lived, each job worked — we can hopefully increase our odds of producing humans who can push forward humanity.

Like if Bob X is born tomorrow and ends up innovating some tremendous breakthrough, it's a good thing that he had garbage men taking out his trash and industries set up to deliver clean water to his house and edible food to his grocery store so that he didn't have to waste his intellect on that crap and he could focus on creating the Dyson Sphere.

And I guess if you wanna take a real existential viewpoint at it: Bob X and his garbage man both had the same expectation of being a "useful" human before they were born, Bob just ran really hot in the birth lottery and his garbage man didn't run so well in the birth lottery. I think we're all just those numbered lottery balls waiting for the winner to be pulled out, I was just (too condescendingly) pointing out that there's a lot of lottery balls who aren't the lucky winner.

Another garbage post from the king of trolls on this forum. Bolded is especially LOL

Jason i have looked up to you for over a decade and your move into finance gave me confidence to head back to grad school for MS Fin degree and begin my career. Thank you

I am impressed by your self control at his comments, i could improve at this.

That said, i would advise you to possibly review the level of respect you assign this persons opinions; or at least restrict your respect to subjects that earned it to begin with. At best he is a professional forum rat and at worst a troll spamming inflammatory responses to generate conflict that releases chemicals in his brain. Just my advice, especially if you are interested spending your time ITT wisely.

I highlighted your comment below because TS has some really amazing opinions on Elon Musk and his post in the Tesla thread are the reason i give 0 value to what he thinks. I also cant stand how he disrespects and insults people on this forum he has never met because they dont agree with him.

I enjoy reading about this topic and like you I feel that we are headed in the direction of UBI (in the peaceful scenario). A few companies generating trillions of dollars in revenue by an amazingly small amount of employees can afford a larger tax rate to fund this kind of system.

However, lately i think if it does in fact play out within 10-15 years, I believe that the influence of money in politics would prevent government from implementing this kind of policy. In this scenario i think social unrest and maybe even war would occur. If that is the case i think the outcome of what actually happens is very hard (impossible) to determine.

The biggest reason that i think we will end up in a UBI system is that it would be in the interest of the owners of the companies generating all of the revenue. Also, the leaders of the companies who would take the jobs have advocated for this system, Zuckerberg/Musk etc. If the Koch brothers were the decision makers, im not sure the transition would be so smooth.

I have tried to avoid my own opinions about what i think is a good outcome. I will just say i think humans are smart enough to find another area to focus their efforts. Most of the jobs that will be lost first are fairly mind numbing and a waste of brain power. I think it is hard to consider what we would do under this kind of system mostly because our species has never been faced with this problem.

Machines and software will takeover, UBI is a peaceful solution, I would challenge anyone against it to present a peaceful system/transition to organize billions of humans with 70-80% unemployment rates.

Nice post Jason.

Your timelines seem way off. Also many jobs could technically be replaced by AI/robots, but they're sufficiently unique/specialized that it's not worth building an automated system to replace them. And if you're thinking some general artificial intelligence is near, then I believe you are wrong and we are probably several decades away from that.

Improvements in AI/robotics will make the world wealthier overall and the people with the money are going to be willing to spend more and more, creating jobs.

Don't be such a baby lol, Strasser is fine without your white-knighting. TS is good for the forums. He often takes an unnecessarily combative tone which can lead to topics getting derailed into ego-defending, but his style of posting also provokes a lot of smart people into laying out their arguments more incisively than they would otherwise (as well as not-so-smart people, but nothing you can do about that).

Interesting conversation > decorum imo.

I think these changes will be slower than you think. It's 2017 and people are still making a living playing limit holdem. It's very hard to predict the jobs of the future. Who would have thought people could make a living uploading youtube/twitch videos or mining warcraft gold 20 years ago? I think creating/collecting digital goods like this will be a much larger part of our economy as people have much more time and money to spend online. I also think the demand for close IRL interactions will go up as people spend more time online. There will always be demand for activities and places that encourage human to human interactions like bars/strip clubs/gyms/meetups which robots cannot replace.

Who has $hit into people's brain so much with their weird definition of being "useful".

Not being "useful" (by some random standard) is the new racist! So many people here try to signal how useful they are or confess their guilt. To what goal, to what end, by what means?

On topic:

OP, what makes you believe this is not going to be like everything else? Lots of drama, but no big deal. Computers brought huge amounts of automation, i don't see the complaints here and people hoping computers will only slowly improve.
40years ago, who knew nail studios and Spas were popping up around every corner. Dunno how many people are employed there and god knows robots might do this soon. Or gyms/fitness.
People used to get paid to lift things, now they pay others for the privilege of lifting iron. It goes back to this story of how Tom Sawyer "fooled" his friends into painting the fence (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ad..._of_Tom_Sawyer).

So, this will sound funny, but maybe people will pay monthly memberships to drive trucks in a few years? And they pay for it with their job as a dog-nutrionist (lol, probably already exists).


UBI is nothing else than another marketing gimmick for more socialism. We have it already in most wealthy countries. Nobody is starving (USA being the exception perhaps, but it's also the most diverse population of wealthy countries, so whatever).
If a country can't afford it, it won't happen anyway.

I can't help but think it is very guilt driven and in another way patronizing ("those poor little idiots won't be able to survive on their own...they need MY help").


Human nature to build & create even if we don't get paid. People will find a new fetish to go after.

Credit expansion (current monetary system) is a negative sum game. Due to this all automation does not benefit anyone in particular. It simply reprices the cost of labor.*

* Nobody in the long run. In the short run you need to be first in line to benefit on the spread between cost of trucking and labor cost before it mean reverts.

Disclaimer: I work in data science and I had HSBC dump ton of written legal documents (credit swaps, ) for automatic anomaly checking. (think everything from Europe) They did not hire even one person a.k.a. free intern on their side for this. In the past it would take 100+ people year + to even sort this, and think about the human error rate.

On a side note, even NPLs are negotiated (still) to be sent through us. lol credit department. Things in DS are ridiculous.

Construction workers were scared ****less of power tools until they realized it made their lives easier. UBI is a social power tool that makes everyone's life easier.

The only thing humans have left over machines is philosophy. Shouldn't we be trying to automate those jobs that stand up in the face of automation?

Hasn't a guaranteed life of leisure for all citizens always been the ultimate promise of sufficient technological development?

I'm not sure how that's going to play out though... My biggest concern at the present time is that we are currently in the process of breeding for dysfunction, stupidity, and poor health where I live. Idiocracy is starting to look positively prescient.

Seems to me that this topic basically boils down to whether you think people, absent work, will live a healthy life of leisure and luxury allowing them to pursue their personal passions, or devolve into a life of drugs, gluttony, and lethargy since to them their life has no meaning anymore.

If you do basic calc you see it is unaffordable, and still needs fraud control.

260m american adults, all get $15k, is $3.9 trillion. That is equal to entire tax income.

Then you still need health care spending which is currently 50% higher than other developed countries, Military which is a trillion $ and not coming down soon, infrastructure etc.

You need to raise taxes, which isn't going to happen. And it will probably push up rents as well, which is largest expensive for most people. So in the end it will just hurt not help. Although it might help accelerate inflating away that massive debt.

Best way to tax it is to take back part of basic income from richest 50% through taxes. But they will be pissed about inflated cost of living.