Marshall Brain

You sometimes hear people say "I mean, we can't just give an AI a bunch of money/important decisions and expect it do ok" but is already happening and has been for years.

Examples:

- Algorithmic trading: I once embedded on an Options trading desk. The head of desk mentioned that he didn't really know what the PnL was during trading hours b/c the swings were so big that only the computer algos knew if the decisions were correct.

- Autopilot: planes can now land themselves to an accuracy that is so precise that the front landing gear wheels "thud" as they go over the runway center markers.

and this has been true for at least 10 years.

In other words, if the above is possible then we are not far off from some kind of "expert system" that runs a business unit (which may be all robots or a mix of robots and people).

A great example of this is here: https://marshallbrain.com/manna1

In truth, we already have UBI. It is social security. Think about it: a country full of fixed income retirees. Sounds great, doesn't it?

Currently that's not working out though. The retirement age is going up, not down. It's too expensive to give money directly and let people figure it out. The UBI end game is something like the terrafoam housing from Manna.

http://marshallbrain.com/manna4.htm

Put all the UBIs in a nice neat little box where we can forget about them, like we do with prisoners. Maybe even add sedatives and birth control to the water, because we certainly don't want resistance or more of them. We'll probably even call them that. UBIs. Universal basic inmates.

“It’s not unusual, except that Manna is telling you exactly what to do every second of every day. If it asks you to go to the back and get merchandise, it tells you exactly where to walk to go get it. And here is the weirdest part — I never see another employee the entire day. The way it makes me walk, I never run into anyone else. I can go for a full shift and never see another employee. Even our breaks are staggered. Everyone takes their breaks alone. We all arrive at staggered times. It’s like Manna is trying to totally eliminate human interaction on the job.”

All described in prescient classic: https://marshallbrain.com/manna1

He was such an amazing guy. We got to interview him on our tiny podcast[1] after we reached out and he so happily joined us for half an hour. His book, Manna (which is $0.99 to download from Amazon[2] or free on his website[3]) is still one of the most fascinating and interesting visions of the future that I've come across (although I don't totally agree it's the only reasonable option).

What a loss.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA5v2cfJp1o

[2] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Manna-Two-Visions-Humanitys-Future-ebook/dp/B007HQH67U

[3] https://marshallbrain.com/manna

Edit: Fixed "free to download from Amazon" - it's not

We're heading toward a future where more and more is automated and there is less and less room for non-creative work. Let's face it, not everybody can be creative in a way that is lucrative. Do we really want to doom more and more of the population to a subsistence income, while more and more of the gains due to automation go to a shrinking segment of the population? I tend to think that a generous UBI is really the only sensible thing to do.

In case anybody has not read it, Mana, is a short story based on an extrapolation of this kind of rise of automation. I highly recommend it: http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

> Does Earth become a giant favela ruled by a dozen trillionaires with a tiny supporting bourgeoisie?

Yes. SF author imagines it would be more efficient to concentrate the proles of into a small agglomeration of buildings. It's easier for the policebots to keep track of the economically worthless underclass that way, you see. https://marshallbrain.com/manna4#:~:text=terrafoam

Wouldn't you rather have an Earth where all of mankind shares in the fruits of automation of labour and everyone can live a blessed live? Read the last few chapters of the story.