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‘Dr. Doom’ Nouriel Roubini says we’re headed for universal basic income or ‘some form of socialism’ as AI revolutionizes work—He calls that optimistic (finance.yahoo.com)

submitted 3 months ago by Delta_V@lemmy.world to c/politics@lemmy.world

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..."Eventually, we need some form of universal basic income for everybody while they work and once they retire," Roubini added. "We're already on the way."...

"We'll have either ex-post distribution—that is universal basic income—or we'll have it ex-ante. Ex-ante means some form of socialism," Roubini explained. "Essentially, the government is going to take over some fraction of the big tech firms."

He said AI companies are already willing to hand over stakes to the government, alluding to a Financial Times report that said OpenAI has discussed giving 5% as a way for the public to share in the upside of AI.

Altman's proposal would entail other AI companies providing similar stakes, although it's not clear if his U.S. rivals would be willing to do so.

As a result, Roubini believes universal basic income or socialism is inevitable, saying "We're going already in that direction, effectively."...

...he called it optimistic, given that it assumes 10% growth and "machines doing all the work."...

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[-] newthrowaway20@lemmy.world 57 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

So he has nothing but empty platitudes while they continue to rip us off at every angle.

UBI will be what they promise while they rape everyone and everything. Then when they have it all, they'll all the sudden be too busy or it'll be too expensive for UBI.

I'd say the fact that billionaires are even talking about UBI like it's on the table is just the redirection while they gut your social services. "Don't worry about us taking your healthcare, or your food stamps. You'll have UBI someday!" Pay no attention to the fact that you can't eat a promise. Don't acknowledge that UBI wouldn't address any cost issues. Even if they did make a real UBI someday, it would eventually not keep up with inflation, like everything else, by design.

If we want social safety nets, we need people who will build up socialist structures, not capitalists dangling yet another proverbial carrot on a stick.

[-] maegul@lemmy.ml 10 points 3 months ago

Yea.

It’d probably help everyone if they considered how hard it is for them to get concessions even when they have levers of power through labour strikes and some form of direct involvement in the economy and government.

What happens you’re just a worthless leech? What happens when they’re not paying enough to sustain you? What will you do? Vote against them? How long will the vote be given to “the leeches”? And then you’ll protest? How long before a massive robot army is both unbeatable and disposable?

I don’t understand how more people aren’t talking more about what mass disenfranchisement broad UBI implies. To be simply exiled from society, not freed from it, seems a natural endpoint. Especially if it’s driven by literal human replacement machines.

[-] dan1101@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago

That's a good point, even if we somehow get to the point where the federal government will implement UBI, it will still be under constant attack unless we also overhaul how the government works. And/or maintain better candidates and voters.

[-] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 13 points 3 months ago

We will absolutely get UBI, or violence will ensue. That said, UBI will not look like humans being able to focus on arts and the humanities. The more likely scenario will be like that found in "The Expanse" book series where "life under basic" will be a threat, not a promise.

[-] Epp@lemmus.org 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

He's entirely right. It's the only way civilization will survive the tumult and unrest that will be caused by mass unemployment. There are very few jobs safe from AI in the medium-to-long term.

[-] hoppeduponcoffee@lemmy.zip 6 points 3 months ago

The only way I’d support this is if the government owned the means of production, not the wealthy elite.

[-] SoloCritical@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago

You’re so close. The WORKERS should control the means of production.

[-] hoppeduponcoffee@lemmy.zip 3 points 3 months ago

Thanks for the correction😅

By government, I mean democratic government that represents workers.

[-] Geobloke@aussie.zone 2 points 3 months ago

Doesn't sound like there'll be many workers

[-] DanceMomsSavedMe@lemmy.zip 6 points 3 months ago

But then the ruling party ends up enriched and becoming the ruling class of the wealthy elite.

[-] SuiXi3D@fedia.io 6 points 3 months ago

Machines can not, and will not, do everything. A lot of manual labor, sure, and media companies already don’t want to pay photographers or writers. However, people don’t go for that shit nearly as much as AI companies believe. When it comes to manufacturing, there’s only so much machines can do before a human touch is required. Hell, just the fact that we have a damn brain and two eyes is more than many machines. We’re creative, curious, and willing to take risks. AI can only do what it’s told, and there are only so many edge cases that can be scripted in before it’s just easier to get a person to do it.

[-] daannii@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago

Humans can problem solve new scenarios. A machine can only apply a solution that's been developed and programmed by a human.

There are very hard limits. It's why cars will never be able to self drive except in specific tracks designed for ai

[-] Epp@lemmus.org -3 points 3 months ago

I think you're mistaken. Their ability to infer from partial information makes them excel at innovating new ideas or concepts not yet considered.

[-] daannii@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Ai doest infer or understand anything

It is just probability formulas.

It can only copy what a human has already done. Only apply it how a human tells it to.

[-] Epp@lemmus.org -2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

You're mistaken. It's a neural network, not so dissimilar from a physical brain - just with simulated, digital synapses instead of biological, physical ones. It is much more than probability formulas. You're thinking of a Markov Chain, which is completely different from the neural network of modern LLMs. Neural networks are capable of novel generation, outside of what was learned during training. There is no copying involved, at all.

[-] daannii@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I'm a cognitive neuroscientist and I'm knowledgeable about these "neural networks". They are in fact , not like the brain.

They are probability models.

The human brain does not use mathematical probability. Nor does it use information the way probability models use it.

The only way that they are like the brain is that both can be visualized like a network of nodes that connect with lines.

"Visualized" . Meaning an artistic representation.

That's where the similarities end.

They are not capable of novel generation except that can remash existing procedures with other procedures that humans programmed them to do, into infinite combinations.

This is not creation. It's not innovation.

It's systematic trial-and-error based on human solutions.

And sometimes after a million iterations, a handful work.

A human wouldn't have needed to approach the problem like that. We rarely problem solve systematically because it's inefficient and we are way better at finding solutions through our own methods.

We only use systematic methods in research and then we still use novel problem solving to implement focused systematic methods. We have limited time and funding usually so we have to be smart about it and not do every combination. Also doing big systematic methods increases a type 1 error.

Which AI does a lot of.

[-] TheCriticalMember@aussie.zone 1 points 3 months ago

Ultimate internet nightmare!

"You just don't understand neural networks."

"Well akshully, I'm a cognitive neuroscientist..."

🤣

[-] daannii@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

I have two masters and am working on finishing up my PhD. I research depth perception.

The reason I have two masters is because I had a masters from a university before applying to a PhD program. The PhD program also is a 5 year masters/PhD combination degree so I got a second master's in the same field during this program.

It's a little annoying to have two masters in the same field but it is what it is.

Cognitive neuroscience is a branch of psychology. Both my associates and bachelor's are psych.

I got my associates at a community college. My b.a at state. My first masters in the UK because it was cheaper. And my current university is a private research focused university.

You are free to review my comment history. I've been consistent in my claims of my education because I don't lie.

You can dismiss what I say because you want to believe in the magic ai.

But I took coursework on statistics for all of my degrees with the exception of my associates.

Including both masters.

I've attended conferences and presentations on neural networks. They are probability models. They use anovas and linear correlation stats to make probability models.

They originally were developed using games with changing rules to see if they could predict how persistent the person would be in using old rules after a few trials gave people the chance to realize the game had new rules.

I actually made a complaint during that presentation that the name "neural network" was misleading.

It was a behavioral probability model.

The probability model was not invented for these studies but these are the early research using the term ",neural networks".

With the goal of applying these "neural networks" to marketing and advertising. of which I found unethical and still do.

But if you are a researcher, working for a big corp to manipulate people is where the money is. So a lot of grads do it.

And just to give you a little example of what an actual neural network looks like.

Here is one of a monkey. Because doing the experiments to map human ones is unethical and not done.

This image is from a volume by Fellman and Essen, 1991. Hard to find online but this image is in many textbooks as an example to show how little we have mapped of the human visual cortex.

Even a simple primate has a highly complex network. And not all paths are used for a given stimuli.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Connections-between-visual-cortical-areas-of-the-macaque-monkey_fig12_282917004

This is all I'm going to provide because in the past I've spent enormous amounts of time getting links and content to explain the basics of neuroscience to people online who can't be bothered to read it because they prefer to have some imaginary belief about it that simplifies it.

It ain't simple.

If you want to learn about the topic more I will just recommend watching a YouTube course lecture series.

There are a few. Just search "cognitive neuroscience class"

But I doubt you will because you'd rather have your imaginary magic sentient AI (that's just a statistical formula) and believe you understand how the brain works even though you never studied it.

[-] TheCriticalMember@aussie.zone 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Holy cow man. I was pointing out the comedy value of a random internet commenter assuming someone doesn't know anything about neural networks only to have that person be an actual expert on neural networks. You might want to put some of that psych knowledge into checking into your sensitivity issues.

And just for the record, I don't know shit about how brains work. I have a ba and ms in computer science and I also don't know shit about AI.

[-] Epp@lemmus.org 0 points 3 months ago

Ultimate Internet nightmare retaliation!

"You just don't understand neural networks."

"Well akshully, I'm a computer scientist specializing in machine learning..."

🤓

[-] Epp@lemmus.org 0 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I value your time and response, but it doesn't match my experience. I am a computer scientist, and have created neutral networks. Just because they aren't structured the same, and have different methodologies, doesn't mean the similarities end at visual representation. The layered digital neurons allow obfuscation of actual processing, there is no hard coded logic as you seem to imply.

And I don't know what models you've been using, but I get a valid, relevant and insightful response 99% of the time, not once every million attempts. Your assertions do not align with my experiences at all.

Generating something that did not exist before IS creation, and it can be innovative. I don't know how you can assert otherwise, unless you've been using very poor excuses for LLMs. I don't see trial and error in responses to my prompts,I see thoughtful, intuitive and insightful responses that demonstrate a level of context inference that couldn't just be random chance.

Perhaps you're familiar with the structural, mathematical and organizational concepts, and you can differentiate their respective methods of operation, but it seems to me like you have faulty information regarding capabilities and the resulting potential usage of LLM models.

Would you be willing to give me examples of things you've attempted that didn't work until after millions of tries, and which model(s) you were using? You seem confident, so I'm wondering where the mismatch is in our mutually shared, individually observed reality.

[-] daannii@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

Dude. Ai is statistical formulas.

Just because it "feels" insightful does not make it anything more than probabilities.

If you create it yourself, you surely understand this.

Ai is a system designed to mimic.

Don't be fooled by a mimic.

You give it "life". You interpret ai as being more than it actually is.

I'm starting to think AI psychosis really is a thing. Way too many people seem to think it's actually alive. Or has consciousness.

It understands nothing. It only regurgitates.

And when I was talking about trial and error I'm referring to the so-called problem solving AI systems being applied to many things.

[-] Epp@lemmus.org 0 points 3 months ago

I never claimed it was alive. I do think you oversimplify it's function, though.

Let me provide an example, and you tell me where the misunderstanding exists?

I take a photo of a wall, and tell a model I'd like a recommendation on color to match the existing palette. It responds with a recommendation that won't clash, but further adds that based on the furniture in the room it suspects the room is used for studying and contemplation. Based on this unprompted observation, it recommends a different specific color, and further adds that the distance to the ceiling is less than standard, so it further recommends incorporating vertical lines into the design to provide the illusion of greater space than is actually available.

I call the additional information insightful, and surmising the purpose of the room based on furnishings, when it was unrelated to the original question, is an example of advanced inference of information. Is it not?

[-] daannii@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago

No it's not an example of advance anything.

It pulls information based on what you, a human asked it to do and it used information commonly found on guides. That a human made.

It's a glorified search engine.

[-] Epp@lemmus.org 0 points 3 months ago

I didn't ask it to analyze the purpose of the room, or make a modified recommendation on the determination. It took the initiative to incorporate that information, inferred a conclusion I didn't provide, and further volunteered helpful information wholly unrelated to the prompt.

Of course humans made the original information. It's the culmination of all human knowledge! Are you suggesting that to be doing anything at all impressive, it would need to spontaneously learn what dolphins think and know?

A search engine... You're not even serious. Nevermind. Go back to earning your PhD in psychology and leave us plebians alone.

[-] daannii@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

But it used popular guides online. That a human made.

It didn't think "oh I should really go above and beyond to make sure this person gets the perfect color".

It doesn't have such motivations since it's a probability formula it instead searches reddit comments and popular websites and uses that information.

These are popular in the first place because they provided good information. Ai doesn't pull from a reddit post with 10 downvotes. Or a website with little information and even less traffic.

And This is how dead internet works.

The websites ai stole that information from only invested in making such guides to pull traffic to their site which likely sells something.

When these guides no longer pull in traffic to their store because Google just stole their tutorials or guides (without crediting the humans that made them) , stores will stop creating guides, tutorials and the like.

Why would they invest in creating knowledge when AI is just going to steal it?

They won't.

In a matter of years there will be no new innovation or guidelines made and vetted by humans. Just AI that stole it from AI that stole it from AI ......that stole it from a human who wrote it 10 years ago to the point where the guide isn't even relevant anymore. And AI has added a bunch of made up sounding things at every iteration so it's now all just nonsense.

[-] drmoose@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

People are very negative in this thread but UBI is a good idea and AI tools offer enough pressure to make UBI a reality. This is good and I hope this happens.

[-] greenbit@lemmy.zip 1 points 3 months ago

It has been dangled like a carrot on a stick for ages and is already possible without the will to do it.

[-] hoppeduponcoffee@lemmy.zip 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

There is no class in this system. There’s only workers and those who work for the government only get the same share as those who do other jobs. That’s why you need a system of strong laws and regulations, created by workers, to keep things in check. Those who are corrupt or abuse their power are immediately removed from power.

[-] evenglow@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

China will get UBI. The only concern is if USA does it before or after China and the way things have been going it will be after.

Regardless of people's opinion on UBI the jobs are going away. China just started the process decades ago. USA did not. China chose to plan for an orderly transition. USA chose Republicans.

[-] Hapankaali@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago

China has a very weak social welfare system compared to Europe, where (in some countries) UBI already exists for the elderly and minimum income guarantees are much higher than in China, even when correcting for purchasing power. The dibao (less than 200 USD per month) alleviates extreme poverty to some extent but not much more. Its European equivalent goes up to about 2000 USD per month.

[-] FoxAlive@lemmy.zip 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Please stop supporting UBI. Even when progressives talk about UBI they talk about how much money they will save because they are removing literally ALL other forms of social welfare including social security.

Imagine having to work at Walmart like your grandma at 80, because the social security check only pays out a weeks worth of pay at a part time minimum wage job. And now due to UBI you don't even get food stamps, or get free healthcare.

We need more socialist programs, not a cash bribe for the stupidst of people to sell out their country.

This is what ai/effeicency looks like. Its going to be like dodge gutting all the funding for the federal programs until they are nonfunctional. All the money should be going to ai and "hyperacalers" instead and people starving on the street is just social progress.

[-] newton@feddit.online -2 points 3 months ago

Stay off the red pills

this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2026

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