A recent post on the dark AI blog (http://darkai.org/?p=1) lays out a vision for achieving a basic income for all in a manner independent of governments. It is argued that governments are notoriously difficult to steer in the right direction, and that we have, with ever increasing computer capabilities, and the recent successful introduction of the Bitcoin Protocol, the means to do it ourselves.

The article is a long read but it is visionary in that it lays out a possible future where we don’t all have to go to work to make ends meet, a future that can be brought about relying only on the cooperation of people.

The author says: “This proposal is presented for peer review purposes. Please shoot it down if you think it sucks, improve on it if you can, and I’ll credit you as a contributor.”

Abstract

The ideas presented in this paper developed in response to help resolve some of the problems which will result from technological unemployment. We believe that as machines become more intelligent and work currently done by human beings become automated there will be a sharp increase in the unemployment rate as humans are laid off to be replaced by intelligent machines. We believe that intelligent machines can be leveraged to provide a basic dividend to a decentralized pseudo-anonymous group of owners as a means of providing an auxiliary safety-net which cannot be shut down by any government or corporation.

Introduction

“Current economic theory simply does not consider the possibility that robot labor might replace human labor as the primary source of economic growth. Only the science fiction community has taken this idea seriously.” (Albus, Path to a better world: A plan for prosperity, opportunity, and economic justice, 2011).

The youth unemployment rate in European countries has been estimated to be as high as 62% (Thompson, 2013) and if the current trend continues the birthrate will always out pace the job creation rate it can be expected that youth unemployment will continue to rise to higher levels. The generation of youth today face an opportunity crisis caused in part by the high cost of education, the debt load, and technological unemployment.

The problem we wish to solve is technologically enhanced unemployment which works around the current paradigm of convincing human beings to attempt to compete with robots, machines, and intelligent machines in the workplace for employment. The new paradigm as part of the solution we are presenting is a world where the incorruptible intelligent machines take care of the human being rather than compete against.

a few of the headings

• The solution categories are political and technological
• A summary of the risks associated with dependency on the political solution
• Providing the basic dividend
• The use of the savings address to simulate an annual salary
• Types of dividends
• Attraction by incentive rather than coercive force
• Miners are virtual workers
• Modeling of natural and unnatural structures to leverage artificial life
• Blending naturally occurring structures with unnatural occurring structures
• Decentralized ownership of intelligent machines
• Distributed ownerless autonomous, smart devices, sensors, smart spaces and the Internet of Things
• Fully automated distributed production network of factories
• Decentralized decision support systems protocol layer
• Reality augmentation and alternate reality gaming protocol layer
• A creative biomimetic approach to problem solving, unconventional virtual architecture and protocol design
• Always on, always open source, always transparent, always free