Robots are machines not humans. So, my industrial rev analogy still holds. Did better machines cause job loses or create more jobs and higher standards of living in the long run?
Per your linked article, the majority of Finns are uncomfortable with the idea of that guaranteed income without those receiving it at least looking for another job, or taking advantage of job training. Scroll down to the end, and guaranteed income is redundant, as Finns have offered to them by the state health care and university tuition to retrain for something.
It appears in the middle that those in the Silicon Valley see such a scheme as encouraging employers to make use of technology like robotics, as humans wouldn’t be necessary at all and wouldn’t want to work if they had an unconditional guaranteed income. So no, IMO the Finns would be serving the majority well, both those gainfully employed and un or underemployed, if guaranteed income no strings attached was abolished.
Bingo, there is already a machine that will harvest just about any crop, but they still use illegals instead. As for what robots will do to the job market, I expect it will kill off mostly factory type jobs, so for instance, you’ll be able to buy a cheap sofa made by robots, or spend more for a handcrafted one made by humans. Humans will shift from factory work to artisans. And instead of compensating for any jobs lost to robots with “free” government money, if there is a net loss, why not just reduce the work week instead?
Maybe we will have to provide a basic income but it will only need to be a fraction of what it would have to be now. And like I said we could stave that off for a while by reducing the work week. Require overtime for anything over 30 hours, then twenty etc. By the time we need to do it, it might be peanuts to pay people enough to live comfortably.
In a fully automated (robot/AI) economy productivity could be nearly unlimited. People may be able to pursue anything they like or nothing at all and still live very comfortably.
They are not ending anything did you read the article? they are going to expand existing programs as because its easier then starting a new one to replace them.
You must have missed the part where it says they are going to end the no strings attached money give away at the end of the year. And they are not starting new replacement programs, they already have a number of redundant programs.
so they are going to keep basic welfare, disability, social security etc, pretty much all the program that people who would used basic income would be approved for.
The no strings attached money was not meant to pay for basic costs but was provided as disposable income, or so it seems. The findings of the experimental program will be interesting.