Problem is with capitalism and it's founders that told us all that you can't live without work. In next decades we will need to change the system diametrical because robots will take all not creative jobs out there. If we want basic pay we will need to tax corporations that use robots at around 70-90%, money from tax will go for basic pay, money from people that receive basic pay will go to corporations etc. Thing that needs to be controlled is capital, it can't be taken out of the market like it's done now, companies are gathering billions of dollars which are taken out of the market. Capital taken from the market can not be redistributed again. One thing is for sure, current system need to be changed and adapted to robots revolution.
Rentier classes clearly do live without work, it's largely a question of how large of a population can live without working. If the fundamental tension in Marxist theory is real, then one could argue that a UBI is insurance against a populist uprising demanding a living wage.
Religion might have been the opiate of the masses in the past, but if price stability with a dole is feasible then I can guarantee you there's going to be a significant share of the population who wants to do nothing but sit around and engage in idle socializing, sports, or art.
Provided that there's also still a differential for working, then people will still chase after prestige but not be threatened by destitution if they choose a sub-optimal career path.
If robots take all the jobs, then nobody has to work anymore and everything will be very cheap. Think robot maids, drivers, and robot-cooked meals. People are so used to today's world of not-so-many-robots that people think not having a job is bad.
Cheap is relative to what you have. If you have no money, no one is going to build the robot that will make things for you. When automation increases without basic income, the share of resources going to those who are automated away gets squeezed, not increased.
Not having any money or job is bad, though. I don't see the state as being reliable enough to care for the mass of useless and unemployed. They will probably set the UBI at a level below the necessary, there will be protests and riots, people will ask for more, politicians will tell them their excuses for why it isn't possible.
If push comes to shove, owning some land and cultivating it could be a job. The earth will hire people its owners to work it. That is, if people will be legally allowed to cultivate their own seeds on their own land.
I see a possible utopia where individual farms or larger agricultural areas will be owned and worked by communities of people. They will be independent as a community from state welfare. They will be able to implement their own lifestyle as a consequence of their independence. Technologies working for this are: solar, batteries, 3d printers and robots.
This is roughly the starting conditions for large parts of America. The problem is that is isn't very efficient. The people who have the resources to do this generally have better options and the people for whom this would be preferable to the lives they are living have neither the knowledge or resources to do this.
There are certainly groups in the middle, farming cooperatives are still present in the area where I grew up, but those that exist do so largely for ideological reasons: family tradition or religion.
I remember thinking this as a kid. "Just make it illegal for a corporation to own a robot, each person only owns one robot and they keep the value it generates." Thought I'd solved the problem ;)
I think the reality is that it's not really a 'robot' in the sci-fi sense - it's a thousand automated machines doing one tiny piece of the process, and slowly your factory with 500 employees only needs 5, and output and quality have increased. There isn't really a single robot to 'own', and even there was it would be far too expensive for one regular person to own it.
why not own part of one. of course I think the world will reorganize into 3 markets managed by blockchains/oracles: equipment rental, labor/services market, attention market.
Would owning a part of the 'robot' be intrinsically different that owning a part of the corporation that owns the robot? Ownership in the companies that we work for is nice, but for most of us it's not enough to live on.
We could intentionally try to make automating more expensive so that companies just don't do it. The problem is automating is actually great for everyone else - as a consumer I'd rather buy a car that is better made, safer, and cheaper from an automated factory than one that might be prone to human error and is more expensive.
