The solution to the takeover of the robots would be to give everyone a paycheck in the form of “universal basic income,” or U.B.I. In other words, UBI would act like a form of welfare or social security in which "the government would send each adult about $1,000 a month, about enough to cover housing, food, health care and other basic needs for many Americans. U.B.I. would be aimed at easing the dislocation caused by technological progress." Obviously, this is a rather utopian way of thinking, but it provides some interesting questions when we relate it to the models that we learn about in class. For instance, how would the government increase the funds to be able to pay each citizen this amount of money? Would they have to increase government spending which would decrease national saving and private investment (crowding out), or would they increase taxes instead. Furthermore, how would this change the labor force participation rate and unemployment rate? These means of finding the percentages might have to be changed with less human capital used and instead a higher "A" value in the Cobb Douglas Production function. Additionally, would a country be able to continue growing past the steady state since the robots could be seen as an increase in the technological productivity of the country. In the end, I think that this article is very interesting to think about after combining all over the other things we have learned thus far in the semester.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/03/technology/plan-to-fight-robot-invasion-at-work-give-everyone-a-paycheck.html?_r=0
I thought that this article was very interesting to read. but the one question i have is, is there any other way to make money for people that cant live off of $1000 a month? and as stated above how is the government going to fund this? I feel that this is an interesting topic but never see robots totally taking over, there will always be a need for human labor.
ReplyDeleteA major theme in many of the blog posts recently has been regarding robots taking jobs. It's true that we will need a plan in case many jobs are taken over by robots. However, a plan like this would require an increase in taxation. I think it is more important to focus on the jobs that could be maximized that robots couldn't take over.
ReplyDelete$1,000 a month does not seem very reasonable to cover food, rent, utilities, and other costs especially if this is supposed to support a family. I think a better program has to be designed if we are going to shift from human labor to robotic labor. I do agree with what Zach said regarding the need for human simply because humans can adapt to change much faster than robots, who need to be programed.. by humans.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious that how will robots affect the steady state model. According to the steady state equation, population growth rate is one of the factors which affect the steady state. In the future, however, robots play more and more important role in the manufacturing, and somehow, population growth rate might have less and less effect on the steady state. Would it eventually be removed from the equation?
ReplyDeleteThis article was a really interesting read. It has a very different take than a lot of other articles on the same topic. As Zach said, I am interested in how UBI would be funded when no one would be working. If robots took over all jobs, then no one would be employed and taxation would be impossible. Additionally, I believe it is impossible that robots could take over all need for human employment. There are many industries that will always need human interaction, such as health care.
ReplyDeleteI applaud the author for proposing such an innovative idea but from my viewpoint I do not see this as a viable option for compensating those who lost jobs due to technological advances such as robots. I believe the only way for continued job growth with the emergence of robots is more specialized education for skills that require humans to perform. There will always be a need for person-to-person contact so the more skills people learn, the better off they will be protected from technology taking over their jobs.
ReplyDeleteThis was a very interesting article to read. It never crossed my mind that something like this could occur. This will defiantly work for some industries but not all. Customer service is an important aspect of a company and dealing with robots is not always ideal. One thing that I can't stand is talking to a computer when I call Apple customer service for example. I just want to an associate. Overall, this will eliminate a lot of jobs and would hopefully encourage people to work jobs that require a more specialized skill set.
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