Since the arrival of Google and ChatGPT's LLMs, I've been counting the days until Attention is All you Need, the paper which enabled LLMs is applied to vision AI. The first company to arrive in the market place offering this is Figure AI. In the art world OpenAI's Sora is causing quite a stir and is likely to be an indispensable source of inspiration, if not production material.
The salary for a manual laborer in the UK is around £25,000 p.a., 24 hours in three shifts is £75,000 p.a. Given the working lifespan of such a person, around 45 years, this yields a budget of approximately £3.3m per robot! When assembly line production is complete; that is robots manufacturing such robots, the cost per unit is likely to be comparable to an automobile. In other sectors, e.g. law, civil service, stock market, etc., the budget will be much higher.
Clearly there is now a case for automation tax, paving the way to basic income.
Automation tax it has been suggested should be drawn from the distribution of profit per employee across all sectors. Where businesses such as present day supermarkets, prior to further automation, aren't likely to pay anything additional in automation tax. In contrast a company employing 1 person making £1bn p.a. is likely to be in a high bracket of ~75%, or even higher. A higher income tax bracket may need to be introduced for executive employees to avert automation tax avoidance through astronomically high salaries. This all presents no concern for new businesses since they are always expanding in their first few years, as such they make small profits initially. Ultimately all displaced employee salaries, equivalent to basic income whilst covering overheads for retraining and pensions, must be recovered by automation tax. This is easily achieved given the 24hr three fold increase in revenues, a ratio that could change with political cycles.
The inevitable replacement of the human workforce will incur much greater levels of unemployment.
What if we don't address the consequences of AI and automation? If we double or triple the number of unemployed people we shall see immense poverty, unprecedented political unrest, the people will be forced to rise up against their replacement. I'm sure this shall be the topic of many forthcoming Sci-Fi dystopias, already in production.
The lack of income, disposable or otherwise results in the starvation of our businesses and the suffocation of the entire economy. Clearly not acting or leaving legislation until later would be utter madness; if only to deter automation without favorable terms for displaced lives today.
How then should the state curtail the resulting crisis amongst the populace? Surely the answer must be Basic Income. The introduction of which poses many philanthropic and philosophical questions, but principally on what basis should a person be given funds by the state?
I would like to pay you to play a game of soccer on Sundays, to study, to raise children; and even more for good grades, to engage in your community, to be charitable, to jog or go to the gym! We might group such activities as beneficial to society, beneficial to the family or beneficial to the self, all three being the more lucrative. Almost anything that is justifiably constructive in one or as many of these categories.
Dangerous, dirty, repetitive work or unsociable shifts, many people are not likely to miss. Though I suspect that those roles which are close to our pre-industrial nature are often the most enjoyable. Roles such as picking fruit in an orchard, gardening or even working in a postal sorting office are often the more social and gratifying for their interaction with our fellow humans.
Wherever possible we should seek to assist our intellects in the careers of our choice. An AI might be provided only as an assistant to a scientist, teacher or lawyer, indeed many other cerebral occupations which offer loftier social appeal to those enjoyed by gatherers and gardeners. In this capacity they should magnify our mental capacity, whilst removing dangerous or repetitive tasks.
The politicians fall into this category. "We love them!", I hear you cry! AI should already be assisting politicians through LLMs in generating manifesto issues drawn from all social network and other postings, prioritized by concordance, grouped into local, regional and national issues, delivered to the sitting and opposing members. At the very least something similar is already taking shape via email and written correspondence with sitting politicians.
It has long been my wish and the resolution to more fanciful political doctrines of youth; finally technology will emancipate humanity!
