[bloaf]

“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked. “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”

Now I certainly agree that there is no realistic scenario where any significant portion of people can just choose free fish in 5 or even 10 years[1]. But the automation of work tasks is like Mike's bankruptcy: it builds slowly until we have the sudden realization that we're over the cliff. Robots making and repairing robots, people watched over by machines of loving grace, the whole 9 yards.

Personally, I would like to have the UBI parachute strapped on before we find ourselves floating Wile E. Coyote style over an economic collapse. Given the rate at which new legislation passes in today's society, the time to start the fight is at least 20 years before you really need it.

[1] Unless those singulatarian types are right, and human-level machine intelligence is 7 years out: https://longbets.org/1/