Scott Santens has done a new interview on UBI. He highlights improving tech as a reason we need UBI:
We’ve seen automation reshape economies before—from mechanized agriculture to digital tools. But according to Santens, AI-driven automation is fundamentally different.
“This time, we’re not just automating physical labor or repetitive tasks—we’re automating cognitive labor, decision-making, and even creativity.”
That shift, he argues, breaks the traditional cycle where technology destroys some jobs but creates new ones. With models like DeepSeek drastically lowering the cost of AI, Santens sees automation spreading faster and further than before…
“In general, I think people have a bad picture of the impacts of automation,” he explains. “A key moment in US history was when productivity decoupled from wage growth. Prior to 1973, productivity grew with wages—they were linked together pretty well. Then in 1973, that stopped being true.”
Productivity continued to rise through computerization, but wages stagnated in comparison. The result has been massive inequality growth.
“A study done in 2018 determined that because of inequality growth, $50 trillion that would have flowed to the bottom 90% as wages flowed mostly to the top 1%. They updated that analysis earlier this year, and now it went from $50 to $79 trillion,” Santens notes. “In 2018, the annual ‘loss’ was 2.3 trillion, and now per year it’s 3.9 trillion.”
Santens argues that the real, existing impact of automation isn’t mass unemployment but rather this staggering inequality. “That’s what I want people to understand—don’t only be looking for increases in unemployment rates. Look for increases in inequality and continued wage stagnation.”
Tying in with this, CNN reported yesterday that “The first driverless semis have started running regular longhaul routes.” Phoenix New Times reported in a recent issue that the city has become a “laboratory for robots.” I can confirm from personal experience; Waymo has been running driverless vehicles for years, ASU has food delivery bots, I have even been served by a robotic waiter.
When I was a kid (90’s) I predicted the tablet computer. People balked at the time but we see now I was on exactly the right track. I always wished for a computer program that would draw a picture based upon a spoken description, artwork AI like Google Gemini are already there, and, while imperfect, are highly impressive and useful. There is no doubt 10-20 years of development on existing technology will leave the masses without anything to do for a full 40 hours a week (Just ten years, by Bill Gates’ estimation). Nor should they; the 40 hour work week was originally hatched on the assumption that the worker had a fulltime homemaker, not “Mom and Dad both live high stress lives grinding away fro 40-60 hour work weeks and do half the housework each.” Most Americans have 2-3 weeks paid vacation, Germany requires 5 weeks paid vacation for all workers with some companies offering 12 weeks annually (yes, you read right!). Our new technology should be used to restore a proper work life balance.
Humanity’s capacity to build a high automation, low poverty ‘utopia’ with UBI is not a far-off dream; we have already walked most of the journey to our destination, lacking only a step or two to go. What may be inhibiting these last steps and their solution will be the subject of a future post.
