Tech innovators in the self-driving car and AI industries talk a lot about how many human jobs will be innovated out of existence, but they rarely explain what will happen to all those newly jobless humans. As usual, Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk responds to an obvious question with an answer that may surprise some.In an interview with CNBC on Friday, Musk said that he believes the solution to taking care of human workers who are displaced by robots and software is creating a (presumably government-backed) universal basic income for all.
“There’s a pretty good chance we end up with a universal basic income, or something like that, due to automation,” said Musk. “I’m not sure what else one would do. That’s what I think would happen.”
The idea sounds great, and makes perfect sense in an emerging jobs landscape where automation in fast food, banks, customer service and, soon, deliveries are slowing erasing the incomes of vast swaths of middle and low-income U.S. citizens.
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