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How will you survive when the robots take your job?
The robots are coming, and they're taking our jobs. Or that's the concern, anyway. A recent Oxford University study surmises that over the next two decades, about 47 percent of U.S. jobs are at risk of being made obsolete thanks to automation. This isn't restricted to just blue-collar factory labor either; even office clerical duties and high-skilled work could eventually be done by computers and artificial intelligence. And if that happens, how will we make a living? Well, recently, a very old idea has gained momentum in Silicon Valley that aims to solve this very problem. The solution? Guaranteed income for everyone.
Y Combinator basic income test makes up for jobs lost to tech
Whether it's rational or not, there's a fear that the technology industry is stealing jobs, leaving people without a way to make a living. Startup accelerator Y Combinator thinks it might have a solution, however: give people a basic income. It's devising an experiment that tentatively gives 100 Oakland families a minimum wage as a way to compensate for tech-driven obsolescence. The 6- to 12-month dry run will offer $1,000 to $2,000 per month to people of various economic backgrounds (not just the unemployed) to see how it influences everything from education to recreation. Ideally, this baseline would both soften the blow of working less and give you a better chance at training for (or creating) a new career.
