An Engineering Argument for Basic Income
It feels like the combination of Yang&#x27;s presidential run and covid has broken the seal on the idea of UBI in the US. After having the experience of the government sending everyone direct payments, I think it&#x27;s all but inevitable that we&#x27;ll arrive at some level of formal UBI in the future.<p>Given its sky high bipartisan popularity, it&#x27;s hard to imagine how any non-UBI supporting politician will be able to compete with a UBI supporting politician going forward. I&#x27;d speculate that this was the deciding factor in the Democrats&#x27; recent Georgia runoff victory. Nothing motivates voters like the prospect of money placed directly in their pockets.<p>While I&#x27;m strongly in favor of UBI and think we are basically doomed without it, there are a couple things in particular that I worry about:<p>1 - As the Frédéric Bastiat quote goes: &quot;the state is the great myth that everyone can live at the expense of everyone else&quot;. Once people get a taste of UBI, how do we prevent voters and politicians from pushing it to unsustainable levels? It seems like the incentive on both sides will be to always push it higher and higher.<p>2 - Motivation and purpose. Imagining a world with UBI, widespread automation, and general or close-to-general AI, what percent of humanity will be able to meaningfully contribute? If the number is, say, 50% or less, how do we maintain any semblance of purpose and opportunity under these circumstances?