THE ROBOTS ARE COMING — WHO’S GOING TO PAY THE BILLS?
A Five-Minute Commentary | The Truth Party
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about artificial intelligence.
And I’ve got a question.
What the hell are we all going to do when the robots take our jobs?
Seriously.
Because this isn’t science fiction anymore. This isn’t something that’s going to happen in 50 years.
It’s happening right now.
And I don’t think most Americans have any idea what’s coming.
I’m 69 years old. I’ve lived through some pretty extraordinary technological changes.
When I was a kid, we had rotary telephones. We had three television channels. If you wanted to know something, you went to the library and looked it up in an encyclopedia.
Today, I’ve got a device in my pocket that can access virtually all the information in human history.
And now we’ve got artificial intelligence.
Something that doesn’t just retrieve information.
It thinks through problems. It writes computer code. It analyzes financial statements. It creates music. It helps diagnose diseases.
And it’s getting better every single day.
So here’s the question nobody seems to have a satisfactory answer for.
What happens to the American worker?
Because our entire economic system is built around people having jobs.
You get up in the morning. You go to work. You earn a paycheck. You pay your mortgage. You buy groceries. You buy a car.
And that money circulates through the economy.
But what happens when companies discover they can accomplish the same work with half the employees?
Or a quarter?
Or eventually, hardly any employees at all?
Now, I’m not saying every job is going to disappear. Nobody knows exactly how this is going to unfold.
But we ought to be preparing for some pretty significant disruption.
And that’s where an article in today’s New York Times really caught my attention.
The newspaper spent more than a year following three people in California who were receiving something called guaranteed basic income.
Basically, they were given money every month, no strings attached.
Two received $1,330 a month. Another received $1,000.
And the idea was pretty simple.
What happens when you give people who are struggling financially a little breathing room?
Well, some interesting things happened.
One woman was a single mother who had experienced homelessness and addiction.
With the additional money, she was able to buy better food for her child, enroll in community college, and eventually find a better-paying job with health insurance.
Another woman used the money to pursue education and ultimately secured a job paying $30 an hour.
And then there was a gentleman with serious heart and kidney problems.
He used the money to pay his electricity bill, buy groceries, and do his laundry.
Think about that.
The ability to do your laundry was a luxury.
Unfortunately, he died during the program.
And that reminds us of something important.
Money can solve some problems.
But it can’t solve everything.
Now, here’s what I found particularly interesting.
When the payments ended after a year, these people struggled again.
Because you can’t necessarily overcome a lifetime of economic hardship in 12 months.
And that brings me back to artificial intelligence.
Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and other technology leaders have been talking about universal basic income as a possible response to AI-driven unemployment.
And I think we need to take that conversation seriously.
But here’s where I want to challenge the thinking.
Instead of asking how we’re going to support millions of unemployed Americans, why aren’t we asking how every American can share in the prosperity AI creates?
Think about it.
If a corporation can produce twice as much with half the workforce, its productivity could skyrocket.
Its profits could increase dramatically.
But those gains don’t automatically flow to the people whose jobs disappeared.
And that’s the problem.
We’re potentially creating an economy where technology produces enormous wealth, but fewer people receive the paychecks needed to participate in that economy.
So who’s going to buy all the products?
Who’s going to purchase the houses?
Who’s going to support the restaurants?
Who’s going to keep the economy moving?
You can’t have a thriving consumer economy without consumers who have money.
It’s that simple.
Now, I’ve been talking through the Truth Party about fundamentally restructuring our tax system.
My proposal is to replace the complicated patchwork of federal taxes with a single flat tax on corporate profits.
I’ve discussed a rate of 29%.
Now, that’s a proposal. It would require serious economic modeling, and we would have to determine whether the revenue could actually support the government services we need.
But the principle is important.
If corporations increasingly benefit from automation, shouldn’t some of those benefits flow back to the society that makes their success possible?
And imagine what we could accomplish.
Universal health care.
Education and job retraining.
A stronger safety net.
And potentially some form of guaranteed income for people displaced by technology.
Maybe we eventually work fewer hours.
Maybe a 30-hour workweek becomes normal.
Maybe technology gives people more time to raise their children, volunteer, create art, and participate in their communities.
Wouldn’t that be something?
For centuries, technological progress has been about making human labor more productive.
But what if the next great technological revolution allows us to rethink the relationship between work and life itself?
Now, I know what some people are thinking.
“John, you can’t just give everybody free money!”
Well, first of all, nothing is free.
Somebody has to produce the wealth, and somebody has to pay for these programs.
And we’d better understand the effects on inflation, government budgets, and incentives to work.
But here’s my response.
If machines are doing more of the work and generating more of the wealth, why shouldn’t human beings benefit?
Why should the entire reward go to the people who own the machines?
That’s not an argument against capitalism.
It’s an argument for making capitalism work for more people.
And there’s another issue we need to address.
Work isn’t just about a paycheck.
For millions of Americans, work provides purpose, dignity, structure, and a sense of belonging.
If AI changes the nature of employment, we’re going to have to think about those things, too.
Because giving somebody a monthly check doesn’t automatically give them a meaningful life.
And that’s one of the lessons from this article.
People need opportunity.
They need community.
They need health care.
They need education.
And sometimes they just need a little help getting back on their feet.
So here’s where I come down on all of this.
I’m not afraid of artificial intelligence.
I’m excited about what it could accomplish.
It could help us cure diseases, improve education, make government more efficient, and solve problems we’ve struggled with for generations.
But we need to make some decisions.
Are we going to let this technology create an even greater divide between the wealthy and everybody else?
Or are we going to use it to create a more prosperous society for all Americans?
Because those are choices.
They’re political choices.
They’re economic choices.
And ultimately, they’re moral choices.
I’m 69 years old.
I grew up watching Americans put a man on the moon.
We accomplished something extraordinary because we decided it was worth doing.
Well, I think we’re facing another extraordinary moment.
And this time, the challenge isn’t getting a man to the moon.
It’s making sure the technological revolution benefits the people living right here on Earth.
And here’s my final thought.
For most of human history, we’ve asked one question:
How do we get people to work harder?
Maybe artificial intelligence gives us the opportunity to ask a completely different question.
How do we make life better for everybody?
Now that’s a conversation worth having.
I’m John Eagleton.
And that’s what the Truth Party is all about.
Let’s start talking.