In an interview with CNBC on Friday, November 4, famed Silicon Valley entrepreneur Elon Musk — founder and CEO of Tesla Motors, SpaceX, and SolarCity — stated that a universal basic income will likely become necessary due to automation.
Musk says, “There’s a pretty good chance we’ll end up with a universal basic income, or something like that, due to automation. I’m not sure what else one would do. I think that is what would happen.”
In recent years, UBI has received a surge of attention from Silicon Valley’s tech industries, where it is often viewed favorably as a way to soften the blow of technological unemployment and to facilitate entrepreneurship. Most famously, perhaps, Y Combinator–the start-up incubator headed by UBI-proponent Sam Altman–is preparing a pilot study in Oakland that will lay the groundwork for a larger scale trial of a basic income. O’Reilly Media CEO Tim O’Reilly and (particularly notable in this context) Tesla Motors software engineer Gerald Huff are among the other members of Silicon Valley’s tech elite who have written in support of UBI.
However, Musk has remained silent about the issue prior to Friday’s interview with CNBC.
Musk has been an outspoken champion of other political causes, particularly the introduction of a carbon tax to combat climate change (a policy that itself enjoys popularity among many UBI supporters who see the tax as a way to fund a social dividend).
Reference
Catherine Clifford (November 4, 2016) “Elon Musk: Robots will take your jobs, government will have to pay your wage” CNBC.
Photo CC BY-ND 2.0 OnInnovation
Yes, I was a “just the facts” news reporter. Nonetheless, I regret that, during my time at Basic Income News, my views had not yet matured enough to come out in opposition to Elon Musk and the automation argument.
I am also a member of the International Dark-Sky Association. I became a follower of the dark sky movement years ago–before my entry in the basic income movement, in fact–after a particularly awe-inspiring experience of stargazing in the quiet countryside, the Milky Way stretched across the sky. It was a mystical experience of oneness with the cosmos, the boundaries of self fading into the darkness. It was a spiritual experience of the smallness of humanity in the infinite expanse of the universe. I knew from that moment on that everyone deserves access to such perspective-setting experiences–and perhaps the earth requires that humans have experiences capable of jolting us into place and inspiring awe and respect for the natural world.
At present, rich tech entrepreneurs–like Musk and his deuced Starlink constellations–threaten to appropriate the firmament to display the glory of their own handiwork in night skies worldwide. A recent launch of Starlink satellites obscured the viewing of a rare meteor shower in even the darkest skies on earth. As I read the news coverage of the launch, the only thing that depressed me more than the launch itself was the fact that the majority of commenters seemed resigned to the loss of the night sky in the name of inevitable technological “progress”.
Technology is not some external force that impresses itself upon us; it is, ultimately, controlled by humans and subject to human decisions. We have, to borrow a phrase from my fellow basic income proponents, “the power to say no”. It requires collective action, to be sure, and we are suffering a collective spiritual crisis if we cannot recognize the inherent value of gazing into the vast universe beyond and before our species. But we mustn’t give up on reclaiming “the power to say no” to products and technologies that we don’t need, those that only detract from important and intrinsically valuable aspects of the lived experience.
That said, it should now be clear why I’ve brought up this business about Starlink. Fatalism about satellite-related sky loss and fatalism about automation-related job loss have the same root source: the assumption that society is powerless to fight back against the will and the whims of technocrats and capitalists.
Technological unemployment per se has never been a worry of mine, since it’s my view that many contemporary jobs never needed to exist to begin with (although they should be eliminated rather than automated, since mere automation does not decrease overall production and consumption). That underlying assumption, however, must be rejected. We must fight back against technocrats and capitalists; heck, the survival of our planet depends on our doing so.
And once that noxious assumption is rejected, we can recognize that we have the power to choose not to automate jobs–the “power to say no” to robots.
There are good arguments for basic income; “we are helpless to stop Elon” is not one of them.
– Kate (former basic income writer and author of this news story)
Hi Kate (long time no speak) ;)
I agree with everything (you write so eloquently), except for a small bit, or with a small comment of my own: robots are not to be “blamed”, since its up to us – humanity – what to do with them. In my view, automation is fine, as long as it serves human interests…the problem arises when these are only though up and built to satisfy the interests of “technocrats and capitalists”. Because the interests of the latter do not, ultimately, and generally, reflect the needs of the average human being.
And yes, I also totally align with this: “the earth requires that humans have experiences capable of jolting us into place and inspiring awe and respect for the natural world.”
Let’s live the best lives we possibly can!
Cheers,
André
Hi André,
Good to hear from you again. Yes, I’ve decided to start trolling my own stories while trying to decide whether to write something more formally again. :)
I completely agree that it’s wrong to “blame the robots” and that automation can be used for good, as when it replaces human labor in jobs that dull, dirty, or dangerous, and actually necessary (as opposed to, e.g., producing or marketing things we don’t need). I’m definitely not against automation per se, just against the fatalistic notion that it’s impossible to stop rich technocrats from imposing whatever they want on society, since this can have far worse consequences. In the large scheme of things, “destroying” jobs may be okay in many cases; destroying nature for the sake of industry and commerce is not. (I think we agree on all this!)
Cheers,
Kate