Godfather of AI Geoffrey Hinton says universal basic income needed in face of AI-related job losses

[midian182]

In brief: Few people are more qualified to talk about artificial intelligence and its potential impact on society than Professor Geoffrey Hinton, often referred to as one of the three "Godfathers of AI." He's one of many experts worried about the impact of the technology on jobs, and believes a universal basic income could soften the blow.

Speaking to the BBC's Newsnight program, Hinton said he was "very worried about AI taking lots of mundane jobs." As such, he has advised the UK government that a universal basic income in which everyone receives a fixed amount of money is a good idea. "I was consulted by people in Downing Street," he said.

Another AI prediction that Hinton agrees with is that while the technology will increase productivity and wealth, without government intervention the money will go to those who are already rich "and not the people whose jobs get lost and that's going to be very bad for society."

Hinton left Google in 2023 so that he could talk about the dangers of AI without impacting the company he worked for. "Look at how it was five years ago and how it is now," Hinton said of AI's state of being. "Take the difference and propagate it forwards. That's scary," he added.

Hinton also worries that advancing AI could lead to more than job losses. The professor repeated his concerns that it could cause an extinction-level event, especially as the technology increasingly finds its way into military weapons and vehicles. Hinton said the risk is that tech companies eschew safety in favor of beating competitors to market and reaching tech milestones.

"My guess is in between five and 20 years from now there's a probability of half that we'll have to confront the problem of AI trying to take over," Hinton said. Such a scenario would lead to an extinction-level event as we would have "created a form of intelligence that is just better than biological intelligence […] That's very worrying for us". An evolving AI could develop a sub-goal of gaining control, Hinton warned.

"What I'm most concerned about is when these can autonomously make the decision to kill people," he said. Hinton's words come weeks after the US pledged never to put AI in control of its nuclear weapons systems, and urged China and Russia to make the same promise.

Hinton's views on AI are in contrast to his fellow AI Godfather, Prof. Yann LeCun, who last year said the alleged threat to humanity is "preposterously ridiculous," and job losses won't be permanent.

Hinton isn't the only industry expert to warn that a universal basic income will be needed as a result of AI-related job losses. Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, has campaigned for the benefit since 2016 when he carried out an experiment that gave 3,000 participants either $1,000 per month or $50 a month for three years. The results of the study are due to be released later this year.

Last week, Altman said he wondered if universal basic income could be supplanted by universal basic compute, in which "everybody gets a slice of GPT-7's compute and they can use it, they can resell it, they can donate it to somebody to use for cancer research." It's unlikely many people would opt for that plan over being given money.

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Godfather of AI Geoffrey Hinton says universal basic income needed in face of AI-related job losses

 

[Hysc84]

But why should u give ?

Unless they spend the income back to u

 

[Uncle Al]

There are simply not enough fail safe's in place to protect against AI going on some unstoppable tangent. Also, as it continues to displace workers, some allowance must be made to provide for wages & income otherwise it will work itself out of existence. No money = no spending and without spending businesses can't survive. The incentive will be to give a lot MORE money so people will spend more and businesses will thrive but since this money for income will likely come out of business pockets there will be great resistance. All in all the concept of AI replacing workers is a self defeating process that cannot survive without change ..... but this could take decades to finally be realized .....

 

[ScottSoapbox]

Universal basic income is a terrible idea regardless of the excuse to start it.

Welfare hurts the people on it and the economy. Just look at any previous use of it and you will find abject failure (but noble intentions!).

 

[noel24]

No.
Why?
AI is just another step in computers.'
Like this Lecun says - did PCs introduced en masse in the 80s destroyed billions of jobs? Did introduction of smartphones cut number of wars in the world and improved life expectancy in the US?
On the contrary. World just changed a little bit.
Mostly companies selling those machines are telling Us how They will change our lives, because They have to, to remain relevant in the eyes of the stock holders.
Probably some 75% of the world doesn't have a PC and lives from agriculture in some place Wall Street moguls couldn't pronounce. Western world has shrinking population with ever smaller disposable income year over year, because mortgage, car and iPhones are getting more expensive, so There is limited amount of machines Jensen can sell.
People will just shift to another job, like They did before, when cars replaced horse carriages, when planes replaced trains, when mobiles replaced hard lines.

I have yet to hear about new life saving, dirt cheap drug made with a help of AI. So far are just photos of artificial cats, tits, and memes about ChatGPT's failures with black people in Nazi uniforms.

 

[Dimitriid]

Universal Basic Income is becoming more and more close to a reality but not because AI will make it necessary: Again I must continue to maintain that all these alarmists articles are just basically propaganda to sell AI solutions: We saw the exact same phrases with crypto, with NFTs, with metaverse stuff, etc. None of which is worth anything today.

By the same measure, AI will just not be able to replace most jobs without catastrophic issues once it has to write or code stuff that actually matters and people die because of it.

But none of that changes anything about the fact that the adquisitive power of most people today is basically gone: people are spending 40 to 50% of their monthly checks on just rent and services alone and have just about zero chances to save money, let alone accrue something of actual value like being able to own their own house for example. Even without AI, people still routinely lose their jobs due to mass layoffs from companies that can clearly demonstrate have record profits and still fire most of their workforce just because they feel they can.

UBI becomes just about the only way you can keep the entire late capitalist society we live in from crumbling down into nothing and that's just for a little while longer anyway since UBI will not be able to sustain most of the economy for long before the billionaires paying 0 taxes have too much and continue to push up inflation faster than what future welfare States can sustain UBI increases.

So at the end of the day, the Universal Basic Income conversation will come to pass into reality quickly and since nothing will fundamentally change the next conversation will have to be around wealth redistribution.

 

[dirtyferret]

AI will just not be able to replace most jobs without catastrophic issues once it has to write or code stuff that actually matters and people die because of it.

If companies can use AI to replace any workers, they will
If companies can use robotics to replace any workers, they will
If companies say anything makes them more efficient and will pass on the savings which is good for the consumer, it's 100% BS

So at the end of the day, the Universal Basic Income conversation will come to pass into reality quickly and since nothing will fundamentally change the next conversation will have to be around wealth redistribution.

That's communist talk! I live in the USA and we hate anything that's communist including socialism. It's 100% un-American. Now if you excuse me I'm awaiting my social security check and then I have to pick up my prescription at the pharmacy, luckily it's is covered by medicare.

 

[m4a4]

As I've been saying, without a quantum leap in processing power, AI cannot properly deal with organic data (unless it is very narrow in scope). Meaning it isn't smart enough to replace jobs en mass. Letalone most skilled jobs.

And then who's going to pay for UBI? Most countries are already in debt (and already need to pay enormous interest payments that don't go back to the tax payers). No model has worked long term, and a lot of the time, it just also means much higher taxes for everyone to offset the "free" money.
There's no way I'd trust the inefficiencies and corrupt tendencies of gov't around doing this right.

 

[NumberNine]

UBI doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell at implementation if it is not also benefitial to the corporations. Too many well paid, well dressed, and well informed professional lobbyists for that to slip through.

Governments and corporations are two sides of the same coin, symbiotically creating and exploiting opportunities for gain. There is no good guy.

 

[Dimitriid]

UBI doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell at implementation if it is not also benefitial to the corporations. Too many well paid, well dressed, and well informed professional lobbyists for that to slip through.

Governments and corporations are two sides of the same coin, symbiotically creating and exploiting opportunities for gain. There is no good guy.

You're not wrong about your second statement: governments and corporations are basically the same thing.

However I do think UBI is plausible because of a point you briefly touch on: UBI can be made to benefit corporations in several ways: It can be used as basically a government salary subsidy across the board so if they get that in the books, they cut all salaries by the UBI.

It can also be implemented as a replacement for unemployment benefits and to justify even more arbitrary employee terminations and yes, even less benefits being offered.

Finally on top of all of that, let's not forget that some of the biggest corporations are so big that they literally can't grow anymore without growing the entire economy overall: It's why some of the biggest corporations suddenly start getting bad investment ratings because well, they have so much money and so many clients potential new investors see no possible way for them to ever make a return so their rating goes down.

Under these circumstances that imho, are basically already happening, it's not impossible that some corporations would bet on supporting UBI because they are betting that all corporations would be taxed equally to implement UBI but the market expanding further where it was thought to be impossible for it to expand means they benefit more than smaller competitors who might have to pay equal parts to implement UBI but not see as many returns, effectively being just another tool for the very top of the food chain to devour even more competitors.

Now I'll give you a caveat: this is potentially so unhinged that it would basically result in cyberpunk finally materializing with most of the world becoming effectively ruled by like 10 unfathomably big corporations, but as I said there's pressure from both regular people who are staring down vagrancy as it is already and the hyper rich that of course now have very limited ways to increase their wealth and control but likely are not satisfied yet and could see it as just another opportunity to get even bigger still.

 

[Ecurb]

Get rid of government human support programs and instead make all those people who had been supported into new government employees using the money saved by elimination of those programs. These new government employees have a straight forward job of looking after themselves. That is their job and they get paid for it. No middle man involved. If they want more than a subsistence job, they can enter the commercial jobs market and compete for better paying jobs. We get government reduction, increased efficiency of government money, an effective UBI, and full employment. These people are fully empowered as anyone as they get to vote with their new paycheck in how and where they spend it. Many can start their own businesses that hence produce a proliferation of niche goods and services not limited by the need to be profitable ( influencers, artists, pundits, philosophers, writers, scientists, etc.).

With AI we will be so productive (as we probably already are) that only a small percentage of the population will need to work jobs that produce the essential goods and services needed to support the human civilization (food, infrastructure, etc.). The rest of us can “do our thing” and take civilization to the nest level. QED.

 

[waclark]

Universal basic income is a terrible idea regardless of the excuse to start it.

Welfare hurts the people on it and the economy. Just look at any previous use of it and you will find abject failure (but noble intentions!).

The thing is, this will just continue to drive the wealth gap. You'll have basic income people and then you'll have people with a lot of money and not much in between. While AI might eliminate some types of jobs, who's to say that it won't create a bunch of new jobs? Take the automobile, sure it eliminated jobs for wagon builders, farriers, public horse barns and so on. But it spawned a ton of jobs like gas station attendant, auto mechanic, auto builder, and so on.

Instead of basic income for life, I would rather give them more education beyond high school. Get the skills to pay the bills! At least advanced education is a one time, one and done, cost.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

Get rid of government human support programs and instead make all those people who had been supported into new government employees using the money saved by elimination of those programs. These new government employees have a straight forward job of looking after themselves. That is their job and they get paid for it. No middle man involved. If they want more than a subsistence job, they can enter the commercial jobs market and compete for better paying jobs. We get government reduction, increased efficiency of government money, an effective UBI, and full employment. These people are fully empowered as anyone as they get to vote with their new paycheck in how and where they spend it. Many can start their own businesses that hence produce a proliferation of niche goods and services not limited by the need to be profitable ( influencers, artists, pundits, philosophers, writers, scientists, etc.).

With AI we will be so productive (as we probably already are) that only a small percentage of the population will need to work jobs that produce the essential goods and services needed to support the human civilization (food, infrastructure, etc.). The rest of us can “do our thing” and take civilization to the nest level. QED.

A) Calling a welfare check a (fake) job paycheck doesn't change anything other than what you are calling it.
B) In what way does this semantic change reduce government? (hint it doesn't)
C) None of the fanciful things you describe, like starting their own business, happen with welfare checks. Why would fake job paychecks be any different?
D) Profit merely means someone finds value in what you produce. Why do we want people to produce things without value to anyone?

 

[p51d007]

Every time I hear this, welfare etc...I just think of this old saying
GIVE a man a fish, you feed him for the day. TEACH a man to fish, he will
never go hungry.

 

[VitalyT]

I share the danger sentiment, not the solution. All I got is a stock of popcorn, to watch the world burn, as I believe it soon will. It will take a disaster of biblical proportion for the humans to attempt any real change. Some AI taking over, some nukes being dropped here and there...

 

[toooooot]

The real dilemma the way I see it is that if there are two choices between doing a very unpleasant low wage job and receiving the same or slightly smaller payment, a vast majority would pick the second option.
None of these UBI people answered a question about what to do with people who do not want to work if they do have another option.
Will all low paying undesirable jobs will get replaced too with AI very soon? Heck no, it is much cheaper to hire people and pay them lowest wage, it has been like this for a long time and is unlikely to change.
Until they have a solid answer supported by research and practical tests, UBI could do one thing--destroy the economy.

 

[toooooot]

Instead of basic income for life, I would rather give them more education beyond high school. Get the skills to pay the bills! At least advanced education is a one time, one and done, cost.

That would be really good, and would definitely help millions of people who cannot afford higher education in this economy.

 

[billc]

I wouldn't take Hinton or Altman too seriously. Like musk they both subscribe to the idea that with enough data a singularity or intelligence can be happen. To be fair to Hinton he tempers that by talking about machine intelligence (which he doesn't define) and admits that computers are terrible at driving cars, which implies he doesn't think AGI will be here soon. Nevertheless, they all equate data with comprehension, without reason, schematics, code, or proof. In his recent Channel 4 interview he abandoned logic in favour of some kind of mystical combination of data and algorithms; which was a shame. So far as the other two are concerned, they are not serious people, and get their ideas out of comic books.

 

[Gezzer]

If companies can use AI to replace any workers, they will
If companies can use robotics to replace any workers, they will
If companies say anything makes them more efficient and will pass on the savings which is good for the consumer, it's 100% BS


That's communist talk! I live in the USA and we hate anything that's communist including socialism. It's 100% un-American. Now if you excuse me I'm awaiting my social security check and then I have to pick up my prescription at the pharmacy, luckily it's is covered by medicare.

I was having an argum... discussion with someone and I was explaining that IMHO there are no pure political systems in use. Fact is socialism simply means that the government deems certain services too essential to leave them up to the free market to supply/regulate. Have a standing army or essential services like firemen? Well those are socialist programs as much as medicare or welfare.

 

[Gezzer]

Instead of basic income for life, I would rather give them more education beyond high school. Get the skills to pay the bills! At least advanced education is a one time, one and done, cost.

Which would be a great idea, and it might even work if there weren't already a lot of people with useless degrees. The only difference is they won't have crushing school debt, which is a really good thing. But without good well paying jobs education is useless. And AI plus automation will shrink the pool of those jobs. So we end up with people working at McDonalds debating Plato instead of picking their noses? Still doesn't create a vibrant all inclusive economy.

 

[waclark]

The real dilemma the way I see it is that if there are two choices between doing a very unpleasant low wage job and receiving the same or slightly smaller payment, a vast majority would pick the second option.
None of these UBI people answered a question about what to do with people who do not want to work if they do have another option.
Will all low paying undesirable jobs will get replaced too with AI very soon? Heck no, it is much cheaper to hire people and pay them lowest wage, it has been like this for a long time and is unlikely to change.
Until they have a solid answer supported by research and practical tests, UBI could do one thing--destroy the economy.

Which would be a great idea, and it might even work if there weren't already a lot of people with useless degrees. The only difference is they won't have crushing school debt, which is a really good thing. But without good well paying jobs education is useless. And AI plus automation will shrink the pool of those jobs. So we end up with people working at McDonalds debating Plato instead of picking their noses? Still doesn't create a vibrant all inclusive economy.

I agree which is why we won’t pay for useless degrees. We should focus on STEM related degrees if you want a free ride or a trade school, it doesn’t have to be college. It could even be a company training program to take higher schooler grads and teach them how to do jobs the company needs to fill.

But money for nothing? Great song, bad idea for society.

 

[waclark]

I was having an argum... discussion with someone and I was explaining that IMHO there are no pure political systems in use. Fact is socialism simply means that the government deems certain services too essential to leave them up to the free market to supply/regulate. Have a standing army or essential services like firemen? Well those are socialist programs as much as medicare or welfare.

Socialism and social programs are 2 very different things. Socialism may work on a small scale but I do not believe there has ever been a true socialist country that did well.

As I have said to others, if you think socialism is a great idea, you can practice it right now in the US. Just grab some friends and set up a “commune”.