but I disagree with your supposition that I (and other people who’ve advocated for UBI) am ignoring all costs in the cost-benefit analysis.
You provided a sketch of a cost-benefit analysis in this post (the four bullet points) and it does not include any costs.
that money becomes mostly meaningless and people upload themselves to computers or merge with AI.
Uploads don’t mean money becomes useless; there is still need for a price mechanism to allocate scarce resources like electricity and semiconductors. Uploads can copy themselves instantly an arbitrary number of times; if each copy gets a new UBI, they can use that to buy the resources for another copy until we run out of resources. The ‘kids’ are interested in keeping the hustle going because they are essentially identical to the parent.
Now, there are ways around this problem. Maybe uploads don’t get the same rights as traditional humans (though this seems potentially quite unfair!). I think this is the most important distinctly longtermist consideration relevant to this issue, and directionally it seems negative.
You provided a sketch of a cost-benefit analysis in this post (the four bullet points) and it does not include any costs.
Thanks so much for pointing this out! You’re totally right. I just went and added one, and this is what I added:
What about the downsides?
The primary losers of UBI policy would be (extremely) wealthy people and people with very high incomes as they will get higher tax rates.
In 2022, 34.4% of American households saw a $100,000+ income. It would be reasonable to say households with over $100,000 annual income could probably be negatively affected by increased taxes.
34.4% * 332M = 115M Americans
They will likely lose some amount of WELLBYs as their lifestyles will be harder to maintain. Increased taxes, the resulting stress, and a slight decline in living standards could likely contribute to, (spitballing again because living with slightly less affluence isn’t the same as living in poverty), a loss of 0.05 WELLBYs per year. I think this could be a massive overestimation though because although some people would have higher taxes, they would also benefit from their friends, family, and neighbors being much more economically secure.
I think it’s more likely only people with over $500K in annual income would be negatively affected (and only as long as their family & friends are also in the same tax bracket). 1% of American households make 500K+ annually. The 1% comprises 1.32 Million Americans.
115M * 0.05 = 6M less WELLBYs/Yr
1.32M * 0.05 = 66K less WELLBYs/Yr
Based on this back-of-the-napkin cost-benefit estimation, it seems like the benefits by far outweigh the costs
33M − 6M = 27 M net positive WELLBYs annually
Regarding Sentience Factories:
I very much agree with your point that UBI goes totally out the window the instant we give rights to sentient computers or uploaded humans because they can infinitely copy themselves into new beings (and that we don’t know when or if that will happen).
At that point though, I think pretty much everything else normal about the world will go totally out the window as well, including currencies. We could end up in some kind of star trek situation + the TV show Upload. I agree that from a longtermist perspective that this possibility is directionally negative. Good point!
You provided a sketch of a cost-benefit analysis in this post (the four bullet points) and it does not include any costs.
Uploads don’t mean money becomes useless; there is still need for a price mechanism to allocate scarce resources like electricity and semiconductors. Uploads can copy themselves instantly an arbitrary number of times; if each copy gets a new UBI, they can use that to buy the resources for another copy until we run out of resources. The ‘kids’ are interested in keeping the hustle going because they are essentially identical to the parent.
Now, there are ways around this problem. Maybe uploads don’t get the same rights as traditional humans (though this seems potentially quite unfair!). I think this is the most important distinctly longtermist consideration relevant to this issue, and directionally it seems negative.
Thanks so much for pointing this out! You’re totally right. I just went and added one, and this is what I added:
Regarding Sentience Factories:
I very much agree with your point that UBI goes totally out the window the instant we give rights to sentient computers or uploaded humans because they can infinitely copy themselves into new beings (and that we don’t know when or if that will happen).
At that point though, I think pretty much everything else normal about the world will go totally out the window as well, including currencies. We could end up in some kind of star trek situation + the TV show Upload. I agree that from a longtermist perspective that this possibility is directionally negative. Good point!