From a purely capitalistic point of view, Artificial intelligence, or robot labor, makes perfect sense by taking over the need for human labor. Human labor has needs that are not exactly consistent day to day. Robots can work 24/7 without the need for mandatory breaks, as are required by law for the human workforce. The act of ridding the workforce of human labor allows greater profits for a company but the downside is it takes away the money stream for the replaced humans that allows them to purchase the products that the robots are producing.
A forward-thinking society that embraces the concept of machines doing all the labor might see this situation as a sign toward implementing a Universal Basic Income for its citizens. In this scenario, all citizen would receive a basic finacial amount determined by the government to aid in their quest for Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness however that might be expressed to them individually.
The Universal basic income fund would be created by Companies that switch from human to robot labor force. This would be calculated by a formula that takes into consideration the amount of payroll savings with the replacement of a human workforce.
Artificial intelligence is the future and is being implemented throughout our culture already but is still at the beginning stage. The fact that it can save a company money is not disputed but a country won’t survive if the displaced workforce doesn’t have a way of making a living and the company itself will find itself without customers. One of Henry Ford’s philosophies when making the “Model T” was to lower the price to a value that the people who were on the production line would be able to afford.
The perfect example of a Universal Basic Income was demonstrated by the COVID stimulus relief money distributed to the citizenry. A majority spent their relief money on groceries and paid down debt returning the money right back into the economy. For the unemployed, a percentage said it did not affect their search for jobs whereas 20% said it actually made them look harder for a job. The benefits to the culture embracing this new technology of Artificial Intelligence should benefit society as a whole and not just the companies implementing it. If it costs less to make a product then that should also be reflected in lower product costs on the open market. The government should also embrace this new direction with guidelines for the use of AI and give companies guardrails to limit the unrestricted growth and use of this intelligence. We are finding ourselves at a critical time where the leaders of governments around the world need to band together to formulate a plan, a constitution, that has a bold new vision for humanity’s future in mind with this addition of an AI workforce. This could be the start of a new golden age for humans allowing them to evolve with the aid of AI. This constitution needs to be implemented in order so the human populace stays in control of the evolution of our humanity with AI assistance rather than AI’s evolution with Human assistance.