by Kate McFarland | Dec 11, 2016 | News
Entrepreneur Gary Fowler has written a guest column for the San Francisco tech zine VentureBeat in which he argues that universal basic income is a viable solution for technological unemployment and that, rather than making people lazy, it would permit the flourishing of human creativity.
After considering the capacity of AI technologies to reduce the need for human labor, and reflecting on the results of basic income trials and psychological studies of motivation, Fowler asserts that people will not become lazy and uncreative “if robots take our jobs and the government gives us a universal basic income.” He goes on to hypothesize that UBI could “lead to a decrease in unemployment as people work towards achieving their needs beyond physiological requirements.”
Fowler is the CEO and cofounder of Findo, a search assistant program, and the founder of Fowler International, an international business development consulting company. His VentureBeat draws from his experience with smart search assistants; in predicting the future of work, he envisions a society in which AI assistants look after individuals’ day-to-day needs.
Gary Fowler (November 6, 2016) “Universal basic income: If a robot takes your job, it could actually be good for you” VentureBeat.
Basic Income Fact-Checking.
It is worth clarifying a couple of ambiguous statements that Fowler makes about basic income pilots.
• Fowler writes, “Finland, for example has initiated a two-year trial period where each individual will get $600 a month as basic income.” To be precise, the two-year trial will only select participants from a subset of the population of working-age adults currently receiving social welfare benefits (see, e.g., “Legislation for Basic Income Experiment Underway“).
• The pilot in Namibia to which Fowler refers was not nationwide (as Fowler’s comment might suggest) but confined to the village of Otjivero. Additionally, it was administered by the Basic Income Grant (BIG) Coalition — a coalition of organizations including NGOs, churches, and unions that has committed to work with the Namibian government — rather than the government itself. (See the BIG Coalition for more information.)
Reviewed by Ali Özgür Abalı
by Kate McFarland | Dec 10, 2016 | News
The charity GiveDirectly, which is now preparing to launch a large-scale basic income experiment in Kenya, has been giving direct cash donations to poor individuals in Kenya and Uganda since 2009. Now donors and other interested parties will be better able to observe the effects of these cash transfers: in November 2016, GiveDirectly launched a new website, GDLive, which reports live and unedited updates from donation recipients.
As GiveDirectly explains in a blog post, “With GDLive, donors can see when (to the hour), how much, and to whom cash transfers were sent, and learn more about recipients’ lives. Respect also means a commitment to honesty: We aren’t cutting a single recipient’s answers and we’ll show everything they have to say about how GiveDirectly has impacted their lives: the good stories and the bad. We encourage recipients to be as honest as possible.”
To protect privacy, GDLive does not publish individuals’ last names or specific villages. The organization also gathers consent from recipients at multiple stages before publishing their testimonies.
In 2016, about 6500 households in Kenya received cash through GiveDirectly. As of October 19, GiveDirectly reports, about two-thirds consented to sharing their stories on GDLive.
Follow GDLive at live.givedirectly.org.
See also:
Michael Cooke (November 22, 2016) “Human stories are not the opposite of data” GD blog.
Reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan
Photo of GiveDirectly recipient, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 PROcoolloud
by Kate McFarland | Dec 7, 2016 | News
Universal basic income (UBI) was a topic of discussion at Europe’s largest annual startup conference, Slush, which convened in Helsinki from November 30 to December 1.
A roundtable (or, more accurately, round-fire) discussion held on the second day of the conference, titled “Basic income – Our next moonshot”, featured three advocates of basic income: Albert Wenger of Union Square Ventures, who has prominently promoted basic income as a response to automation; Matt Krisiloff of Y Combinator, who is a research director of the firm’s basic income pilot in Oakland, California; and Roope Mokka of Demos Helsinki, who wrote an article calling basic income “the moonshot of our generation”.
The discussion covered advantages of basic income, as well as potential hurdles in its acceptance and implementation. Wenger emphasized the potential for UBI to promote entrepreneurship, branding it as “seed money for the people”. Mokka, while agreeing that UBI “has to happen”, added that society additionally needs to conceive of new ways in which individuals can relate to society in a world with much less work for them to do. Krisiloff suggested that, rather than implementing a UBI all at once, it would more feasible to introduce a UBI gradually in a country like the United States, due to the cultural opposition to giving people “money for nothing”.
Two attendees, Sharetribe CMO Sjoerd Handgraaf and tech journalist Derek du Preez, have written summaries of the conversation with brief commentary:
Derek du Preez (December 2, 2016) “Slush 2016 – Universal Basic Income ‘has to happen’,” diginomica.
Sjoerd Handgraaf (December 2, 2016) “Universal Basic Income @ SLUSH 2016,” Medium.
Slush states that its mission is “to help the next generation of great, world-conquering companies forward.” This year, the non-profit event was attended by an estimated 17,500 individuals from 124 countries.
Watch the 30-minute fireside chat
Reviewed by Genevieve Shanahan
Slush photo CC BY-NC-2.0 Taloudellinen tiedotustoimisto
by Guest Contributor | Dec 6, 2016 | Opinion
Written by: Pierre Madden
On November 12 and 13 I attended a congress of the Liberal Party of Quebec, which is currently in power in the province.
The Minister of Employment and Social Solidarity, François Blais, confirmed that a joint working group, with his colleague in Finance, will issue a preliminary report on Basic Income in the Spring. Our neighbouring province of Ontario (which, together with Quebec accounts for 62 percent of the population of Canada) was just released a working paper on a pilot project to begin in April 2017. Quebec does not seem to be leaning towards a pilot project.
In his talk, Minister Blais placed much emphasis on the principles underlying the development of the government’s project:
- The development of human capital (though education, for example)
- The obligation of protection from certain risks (with unemployment insurance and health insurance, for example)
- Income redistribution
The minister’s speech was highly focused on incentives to work or study (especially for the illiterate or those without a high school diploma).
The principle of unconditionality, a fundamental aspect of Basic Income, will likely not be a feature of the government’s plan.
On the second day of the congress it was the minister’s turn to ask me if he had answered my question. I described my own situation as a case in point. I am 62, three years away from my public pension which here in Canada is sufficient to raise most people out of poverty (works for me!). Why would the government be interested in the development of my human capital? The minister replies: “In a case like yours, we would have to go back in time to see what choices you made.” I have several university diplomas, which doesn’t help his argument. I am still either underemployed or unemployable.
The minister could only answer: “I would have to know more about your individual case.”
And that is what the government does and will continue to do for all those considered “fit for work.” Petty bureaucratic inconveniences for those “unfit for work” will be removed and their inadequate benefits will be improved by dipping into the funds previously used for the “fit” as they return to the workforce. The government sees no difficulty in a law it passed just last week (Bill 70: An Act to allow a better match between training and jobs and to facilitate labour market entry). The government highlights the positive measures it imposes to help participants join the job market. Those who prefer a non-paternalistic approach (“Give me the money and let me make my own decisions”) are penalized.
The irony is that before he entered politics Minister Blais actually wrote a book in support of Basic Income for all. He confirmed to me that he still believes what he wrote 15 years ago.
In Canada, both the federal and the provincial governments partially reimburse sales tax. Here in Quebec, the Solidarity Tax Credit refunds part of the estimated sales tax paid by consumers. The higher your income, the lower the monthly payout, so it works like a negative income tax. The minister was asked about this as a stepping stone towards Basic Income. He simply said it would be “a more radical approach.” Of course, tax credits don’t impact on “human capital.”
You can be sure I will be rereading François Blais’ book when his work-group’s report comes out next year.
About the author: Pierre Madden is a zealous dilettante based in Montreal. He has been a linguist, a chemist, a purchasing coordinator, a production planner and a lawyer. His interest in Basic Income, he says, is personal. He sure could use it now!
by Kate McFarland | Dec 4, 2016 | News
BIEN Iceland, one of BIEN’s newly created national affiliates, will hold its official launch event on Saturday, December 10, 2016, at the Gaflaraleikhúsið Theatre in Hafnarfjörður, Iceland.
The date of the launch was selected to coincide with Human Rights Day, the anniversary of the day on which the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
BIEN Co-Chair Louise Haagh will speak at the event, and Jouko Hemmi and Simo Ruottinen of BIEN Finland will present the latest information about Finland’s basic income pilot study, which is scheduled to begin in early 2017.
More details about the launch are available on the event’s page on Facebook (in Icelandic).
Reviewed by Ali Özgür Abalı
Photo (Hafnarfjörður) CC BY 2.0 Daníel Örn Gíslason
