Politics

Automation, UBI, And The Future Of Human Labor

A brief exchange between candidates Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Andrew Yang regarding the threat automation poses to future human employment deserves more of our attention.

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Andrew Yang

To presidential candidate Andrew Yang, automation is a looming nightmare for American workers, particularly for truck drivers (all 3.5 million of them and the 3.5 million service workers who support them). During the most recent presidential debate, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, arguably the Democratic front-runner, pushed back against Yang’s dire warnings, arguing that bad trade policies represent a larger, or more “real” threat to future employment than automation. The all-too-brief exchange has thankfully led to a larger discussion over what Americans face in a 21st century economy, with some experts viewing Yang as being completely “full of it.”

I agree with these critics of Yang who point out that an increase in the prevalence of automation in society has coincided with sharp declines in poverty and that all signs indicate poverty will continue to decline at the same rapid pace. Accordingly, I do not share Yang’s fearful vision of mass unemployment. Moreover, Yang’s proposed policy solution to the threat of automation of a human dividend (otherwise known as Universal Basic Income or UBI) has also received significant skepticism.

Simply put, UBI is a policy of free money. The only condition would be, as Rutger Bregman describes, that you “have a pulse.” For what I assume are obvious reasons, UBI is rather controversial. For example, the same critic I cite who doubts Yang’s claim regarding the fear over automation describes Yang’s proposed solution of UBI as “lazy.” Yet when one examines the results of UBI wherever implemented in real life, as historians like Bregman cite, the policy can demonstrate limited, but also discernable benefits.

Of course, some claim UBI will cost more than the numbers put forth by Bregman. Indeed, if the policy of UBI were applied in a true universal sense here in the U.S., as in every American received an income, then the costs soar into multiples of trillions. Accordingly, I don’t believe anyone can make a reasonable case that a true universal form of UBI is currently a viable policy, yet. More targeted versions of UBI become more reasonable in cost, yet it is likely such skepticism over cost will continue to present insurmountable obstacles to policies such as Yang’s UBI, or Warren’s universal healthcare/free college America. Equally common is the answer that such costs can be borne by a necessary increase in taxes, primarily on the wealthy. Entirely missing from the discussion of cost is the impact of emerging human access to off-Earth resources can have in a 21st century economy.

I suspect that by including humanity’s increasing ability for space travel, it might seem as though I am introducing more uncertainty, or perhaps more sensationalism into the discussion. In reality, the benefits of an investment in space are far more certain than any economic proposal proposed by Warren or Yang — or any politician, for that matter. To explain, we currently have the capability of implementing fully automated missions that can map, sample, analyze, and bring back material from near-Earth objects. Objects that exist in numbers that are hard to fathom and contain every mineral and substance (including water), humans value. In other words, the human struggle over scarcity of materials and dependence on finite Earth resources is over, yet, this fact never seems to enter discussions regarding a 21st century economy. I suspect the silence is due to the fact that the benefits of space likely sound more far-fetched to the average American than human Earth-based policies like UBI, or universal healthcare. But as I keep trying to illustrate, human access to what amounts to a limitless quantity of resources in space is guaranteed; indeed, we have already achieved this access. What’s needed is more understanding and discussions over the extent to which this access alters human economies/societies.

Try to stay with me here, but this is how it will likely play out in the 21st century. Remember, we currently possess the ability to map, sample, and mine near-earth objects: The first near-Earth object that we would want to mine would be an iceteroid or comet, given they contain copious amounts of the two main ingredients of rocket fuel (hydrogen and oxygen). Even better would be directing an iceteroid or comet into one of Earth’s stable Lagrange points, where its materials could then be processed into a refueling station for spacecraft launched into low Earth orbit via ever cheapening and cost effective reusable Earth rockets. With such a refueling station at one of earth’s L-points, the cost of traveling far beyond Earth orbit drops dramatically, allowing for the even cheaper capture of more iceteroid’s or mineral based objects. These resources can then be assembled in other L-points — without having to exploit human labor or fragile earth ecosystems — to create giant habitats, large enough to have adequate radiation shielding and spin for gravity. Such a habitat could then be set on an orbit that continually travels between Earth and Mars, possibly utilizing gravity assist to maintain velocity instead of traditional fuels. We could even send such habitable structures to other planets within our solar system such as Jupiter or Saturn that have moons which contain large oceans of water that could be made habitable or simply extracted via space elevators that, while not feasible here given Earth’s strong atmosphere, could possibly operate in the far less dense atmosphere of Mars.

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Again, I know how this might sound to some. But given that multiple candidates for president are promoting policies like universal healthcare, free college, green new deals, and eliminating dependence on fossil fuels — policies that would require trillions upon trillions of capital investment — before presenting a viable plan for how to pay for it all, that I can use reasonable evidence to prove my kooky-sounding space-mining plan will indeed pay for itself should make it more credible, right?

Tyler Broker’s work has been published in the Gonzaga Law Review, the Albany Law Review, and is forthcoming in the University of Memphis Law Review. Feel free to email him or follow him on Twitter to discuss his column.

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