>If the goal is to have a system where everyone can have passive income, then achieving that goal is the end of the world.
If AI and robotics continue to be developed, then eventually most human labor becomes uneconomical by comparison. At that point, the system provides passive income on a mass scale (UBI) to prevent its own violent destruction. At least, that's the good ending.
To clarify, the "human labor no longer exists in a meaningful way" thing depends (as far as I can tell) on "robots are able to perform all human labor", so their yacht would be cleaned by robots. Though I imagine they might hire humans anyway, as some kind of status symbol! (Artisanal, like hand-crafted items today.)
Yes. But I’d be afraid we might reach mass unemployment before we get to robots performing well on infinite variations of what would otherwise be simple tasks, but in wide arrays of utterly unpredictable environments and situations.
Technology is quickly helping to eliminate the "pitchfork" option. By the time we are in a world where human labor is unnecessary or worth nearly nothing, the elite will have all the automated surveillance and robo-policing technology they need to prevent rioting and pitchforks, and more secure ways to remain safely isolated from the rabble. When it comes to "what Sci-Fi future we're headed towards" I would bet on something like Elysium.
It might indeed be easier to develop automated surveillance, reinforce police states, and isolate themselves, than create working robot-plumbers, automated 3 star worthy kitchens, and self-cleaning boat decks.
Existing welfare schemes do a lot to approximate a UBI scheme, just with a lot more overhead, paperwork, moral grandstanding, various other inefficiencies that lower the useful amounts, and stress for all involved. Still, if a UBI scheme were implemented today instead, I don't think much would change from the current status quo. It would probably provide for living comfortably enough, but not enough to buy whatever desired luxury or experience at any given moment. That's sufficient for a market to form. Whether labor activities like fixing toilets or cleaning yachts survive depends on the market price for such labor. Some activities will go away (like a well-swept shop) because the price floor is too high and automation hasn't caught up or been made cheap enough, some will just become more expensive, more and more will get automated over time.
> It would probably provide for living comfortably
Not if we increase the amount of money compared to what's currently spent on welfare by several times. Or if we don't and just replace current targeted welfare schemes with UBI the people who can't actually work will just be reduced to extreme poverty.
e.g. US Federal revenue is ~$13k and spending $18k per capita and that includes everything. Even if it were somehow possible to double tax revenue with no negative outcomes it would hardly be sufficient.
My good ending would be to redistribute equitably the wealth generated by the machines labor, and maybe even abolish currency, once (if) we reach such a point.
Or, what has already happened through the massive technological advances of the past thousand years, AI and robots replace human labor, and humans spend their time doing something else, whether being the person in charge of the robots, or breaking into an entirely new area of work that never existed before.
It’s the same argument that was made back before printing presses, the cotton Ginny, tractors, cars, etc, etc.
If AI and robotics continue to be developed, then eventually most human labor becomes uneconomical by comparison. At that point, the system provides passive income on a mass scale (UBI) to prevent its own violent destruction. At least, that's the good ending.