Basic Income Primer
Technology becomes cheaper (draft — editing).
Basic income is a permanent, irrevocable, guaranteed, unconditional welfare payment for everyone. The income covers all basic necessities thereby entailing independent living. It is free money. Basic income is a prelude to everything being free.
In the future everything will be free because technology allows us to manufacture products cheaper each year. 31 years before year 2014 (in 1983), the first USA mobile phone was priced at around $3,700.
UK phones were similarly very pricey. Two thousand pounds was common. In early 2014 the cheapest phone had dropped to three pounds or seven dollars. Furthermore these massively cheaper phones offered vastly superior tech: organizer, calculator, stopwatch, games, voice memo, FM radio, currency converter.
Technological progress in 2014 is a good reason to implement basic income. Perhaps our low-cost era of superior technology makes basic income more acceptable. When Martin Luther King and Bertrand Russell advocated basic income the evidence was less clear, although history does show us how technology reduces the cost of resources.
Did you know aluminium was more expensive than platinum or gold in the 1840s because we didn’t have the technological skill to efficiently refine it? In 2014 aluminium foil is regularly thrown away after cooking.
Hard drive prices have decreased similar to phones. Per gigabyte:
Per terabyte:
The New York Times wrote on 15th March 2014 (bold emphasis added):
“WE are beginning to witness a paradox at the heart of capitalism, one that has propelled it to greatness but is now threatening its future: The inherent dynamism of competitive markets is bringing costs so far down that many goods and services are becoming nearly free, abundant, and no longer subject to market forces.”
Along with other mainstream media outlets, the New Statesman has written about the validity of Basic Income. to counteract the dangers of technological unemployment:
“Automation technology is going to make our lives easier. But it’s also going to put a lot of people out of work. Taxi drivers, journalists and athletes have everything to fear from self-driving cars, algorithmically-generated news and robotic arms that play a decent game of table tennis.”
#TechnologicalUnemployment means #BasicIncome is not only possible but essential too. The pending Basic Income referendum for Switzerland is a good sign regarding what is possible.
Progress up to 2014 has been based upon mere human intelligence, but all the big companies are investing heavily in AI. It is safe to assume greater than human intelligence is coming. Imagine how much more efficient production will be when advanced AI minds create radical forms of technology. Consider also the 3D-printing revolution. We are starting to see high public demand for low cost 3D-printers.
Technological progress is accelerating via human brains alone. Without AI it’s likely everything will be free. With advanced AI there should be absolutely no doubt. AI will entail an explosion of ultra-efficient intelligence. Total automation means everyone will be unemployed.
Consider the AI Watson by IBM.
“For more than 50 years, we’ve been hearing about the promise of artificial intelligence and intelligent machines, but most of the big success stories to date – the IBM Watsons of the world – have been the result of massive efforts by universities and corporate R&D labs rather than by emerging start-ups. That could change soon, as artificial intelligence shows signs of becoming the next big trend for tech start-ups in Silicon Valley.”
Hopefully this primer will help people understand our radical future, but perhaps basic income is too radical. One radical hacker, Ryan Ackrold @APT1337 formerly from LulzSec, is skeptical:
The evidence is clear, but if radical people who think outside the box cannot foresee basic income happening perhaps there’s no hope. We do live in a world where many people believe in God. Some people actually think deformed cows can fulfill all your wishes.
A lot can change in a short period of time. In February 2014 YouTube was only nine years old. The WWW only became publicly available in August 1991. Twitter began in 2006.
Consider 31 years between 1983 to 2014. Our world has changed significantly. The cheapest phone in 1983 was $3,700. Vastly superior phones were available at $7 or less in 2014, despite inflation! What will the next 31 years bring? How much cheaper will phones be in 2045?
Additional notes.
Some mobile phone history:
“By Christmas 1997 there was a choice of three pay and go services: Vodafone 'Pay As You Talk'; One2One 'Up 2 You' and Orange 'Just Talk'. Vodafone offered cheaper analogue phones including the Nokia Ringo, one of Nokia's last analogue phones, for £99. Both Orange and One2One offered just one choice of phone for £179.99.”
More mobile phone history:
£3000 - Motorola 8000X - 1985
£2200 - Mitsubishi Roamer - 1986
£1990 - Excell M1/M2 - 1985
£1950 - Nokia (Mobira) Cityman 1320 - 1987
£1795 - NEC 9A - 1987
£1765 - Motorola 9800X - 1989
£1595 - NEC P4 - 1992
£1499 - NEC P3 - 1990
£1495 - Motorola 8800X - 1992
£1400 - Motorola StarTAC 85 - 1996
£999 - Nokia Cityman 100 - 1992
£950 - Nokia 9000 Communicator - 1996
£869 - Ericsson GH197 - 1993
£821 - Nokia 1011 1993 (Carphone Warehouse price August 1993)
£800 - Panasonic F1 - 1992
£762 - Motorola 3200 - 1993 (Carphone Warehouse price August 1993)
£712 - Motorola 7200 - 1993 (November 1993)
£700 - Nokia 2110 - 1994
£599 - Technophone TP4 - 1992
£449 - Nokia 101 - 1992
£269 - iPhone - 2007 (UK launch price)
