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Universal Basic Income : A peep into dream world

Universal Basic Income : A peep into dream world

Kiosked Error loading player: No playable sources found An exceedingly important proposal in the Economic Survey to introduce a new scheme to guarantee Universal Basic Income (UBI) to every citizen seems to have a favourable climate for experimentation in India. Known by various names, it was discussed in many countries all over the world but mostly dropped as impracticable.

Importantly, the Economic Survey has devoted a whole chapter of 40 pages to this subject. Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley calls it a “powerful idea” and the Government finds it feasible. It is intended as a substitute to a number of […]

Elon Musk: Automation Will Force Governments to Introduce Universal Basic Income

Elon Musk: Automation Will Force Governments to Introduce Universal Basic Income

Elon Musk believes artificial intelligence that is much smarter than the smartest human on Earth could result in dangerous situations.

Musk argues that the government must introduce a universal basic income program in order to compensate for automation.

Recently, Elon Musk had the chance to share his thoughts on universal basic income (UBI) at the World Government Summit in Dubai. At the Summit, Musk had the opportunity to talk about the future , and the challenges the world will face in the next hundred years – including artificial intelligence (AI), automation, and the job displacement expected to come with […]

It’s Not Automation, It’s the Trade Deficit

It’s Not Automation, It’s the Trade Deficit

This kid is clearly skeptical of robots. But don’t blame them — or automation — for manufacturing job loss in the United States. | Photo by John Martin A common refrain in economic commentary on the nature of work, and the changes in manufacturing employment, is basically:

“Trade didn’t take those jobs. It was robots. The robots did it!”

Okay, maybe it’s not the terminators who are doing it. Rather, it’s industrial automation: We make more stuff with less people, because manufacturing is now performed by automated processes. This idea is breezily inserted into all kinds of articles, including ones with […]

Re-imagining the automation disruption

Re-imagining the automation disruption

The idea of machines and humans coexisting as co-workers to complement each another is arguably a more realistic one than AI replacing humans completely. Photo: iStockphoto It’s called the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Curiously, rapid developments happening in fields previously thought to be disjointed are now amplifying each other.

We are seeing this in the areas of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, robotics, nanotechnology, 3D printing, genetics and biotechnology. On a different tangent altogether, smart systems are able to address a diverse set of issues ranging from climate to supply chains. What must be underscored here is a sense of urgency. […]

1.3 Million Jobs Created By Closing Trade Deficit Says Think Tank

1.3 Million Jobs Created By Closing Trade Deficit Says Think Tank

Trade pressure and faltering U.S. competitiveness, not automation was the main reason the U.S. lost 5.7 million manufacturing jobs between 2000 and 2010, according to a new report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF).

“We keep hearing from economists and pundits that the United States has lost the bulk of its manufacturing jobs to automation, so there’s nothing we can do to get them back. But that’s simply not true,” said Adams Nager, ITIF’s economic policy analyst and the report’s author.

“It’s time to stop blaming manufacturing job losses solely on robots and start recognizing the impact of […]

Largest social experiment on universal basic income underway in Kenya

Largest social experiment on universal basic income underway in Kenya

Largest social experiment on universal basic income underway in Kenya

Finance

source: 123rf/copyright: Temistocle Lucarelli Omidyar Network supports the largest social experiment exploring the roles and functions of the universal basic income. Together with GiveDirectly, the foundation established by the eBay founder, will give money to over 26,000 people from Kenyan villages in order to prove the positive impact of the basic income. Omidyar Network is promoting the largest social experiment exploring the roles and functions of the universal basic income. Together with GiveDirectly, 26,000 people from Kenya will receive direct cash transfers and 6,000 of them […]

Seyfarth Shaw Will Start Using Robots For Repetitive Tasks

Seyfarth Shaw Will Start Using Robots For Repetitive Tasks

Image Courtesy of Community Insight Bank The world is changing at a fast pace. With technology at our finger tips, we are able to do just about anything these days. Society is using more and more automation in every day tasks, and we are relying on computers to handle those things we simply no longer have time for.

Seyfarth Shaw LLP, a pioneer in the legal industry for utilizing business process improvement technology, made the decision last week to license robot technology from Blue Prism. The software owned by Blue Prism can automate processes that will enable an individual to […]

‘Finns and Koreans have similar mind-sets’

‘Finns and Koreans have similar mind-sets’

Eero Suominen [PARK SANG-MOON] Finland is home to the Northern Lights, Santa Claus, cloudberries and berry-foragers, reindeers and wolves and shockingly strong coffee.

But the northern European country has recently gained attention in Korea for its new social welfare policy of universal basic income.

“It is a trial – we have selected 2,000 people in Finland who are unemployed or partly employed and are aged between 25 and 58,” said Finnish Ambassador to Korea Eero Suominen. “They are randomly selected and will be given 560 euros ($595) a month. And they will not lose it, even if they get employed.”The Finnish […]

Could Donald Trump Deliver a Universal Basic Income?

Could Donald Trump Deliver a Universal Basic Income?

Three weeks into his presidency, Donald Trump has seemingly gone out of his way to alienate everyone who opposed him — or perhaps just about everyone, period. Levels of dissatisfaction have reached the point that many would be unlikely to acknowledge Trump even if he did something truly beneficial for society. But then some might ask, what good could he possibly do?

Trump came in on a wave of domestic insurgency. If any mandate can be construed from his messy, purely technical win, it was to shake things up in Washington. And while he clearly does not have the interest […]

Paris Gourtsoyannis: Is it time for a basic income for all?

Paris Gourtsoyannis: Is it time for a basic income for all?

Picture: Getty There isn’t much to distinguish the town of Dauphin, Manitoba (population 8,457) from anywhere else in the Canadian prairies. Its junior ice hockey team won the provincial championships in 2010. The high school and airfield are named after a decorated local First World War hero. Most of its citizens owe their living to oilseed and grain farming, and are mostly descended from Ukrainians, Scots and Irish who settled there in the past 150 years, or the natives who were there when they arrived.

It’s ordinariness does nothing to betray that for a few years in the […]