Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics will swallow up jobs, say the tech bosses, the analysts, the commentators: so we’ll need to pay everyone a basic income.
Populations are ageing, say the politicians: so we’ll all have to work for longer (Australia’s government is already considering raising the pension age to 70 by 20351). These two narratives are incompatible. That’s the clue that a political question is being hidden: how to distribute income and employment as technology and demographics change? Instead of answers, a false inevitability is being created around one political option – the universal basic income (UBI).
