The brilliant scientist Stephen Hawking once stated in a BBC interview that "[t]he development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race." While Hawking had a more "Terminator"-like world in mind (where robots evolve to become more intelligent than humans), Andrew Yang's take on AI is more concrete and immediate. His thesis is a straightforward one: that technology is moving at such a pace that huge swaths of the workforce will be displaced within the decade. He notes that the top five jobs in America (clerical worker, retailer, restaurateur, truck driver, manufacturing worker) make up nearly 50% of jobs today; once automation eliminates the human component of these positions, it would lead to a social revolt.
This is a theme that I have discussed many times with friends in the private sector (as investors actively managing money, my peers and I often wonder whether a machine would displace our own jobs and eliminate irrational human psychological or behavioral factors). The demographics are simply working against us: 30% of millennials today are socialists, and baby boomers do not have enough money to retire; even if they have their pensions, who's to say that will be paid out? Underfunded liabilities (social security, Medicare / Medicaid) in U.S. corporations are at $100 TRILLION - that's five times GDP!
Andrew is the first politician I know of who has brought these concerns to the public sector. To paraphrase him from the event, market dynamics do not value the individual human; as such, he believes that the public sector is a better venue to address this issue than the private one. The solution: $1,000/month for every citizen in the form of a Freedom Dividend, i.e. a Universal Basic Income. In my opinion, this takes a tremendous leap of faith in the human spirit, but Andrew believes that with UBI, workers - now under less financial duress - would have the time to shift their attention to more productive work. He does not want to stifle innovation: from my understanding, he also has the support of numerous technology firms in Silicon Valley, and these companies would support him in this accumulation of "human capital."
In the end, we as a society are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Add to this the fact, that at the end of the day, many people work not just to bring home a paycheck, but also to find meaning and purpose. I came out of Sake thinking of the story that Andrew told of his meeting with a group of CEOs on Wall Street during his campaign. One of the attendees at the end of the presentation said to him: "I agree with the diagnosis, not the prescription. But I can't think of another prescription, so we'll go with yours until someone comes up with a better one." Regardless of the solution, Andrew is doing society a major public service by bringing the demographic issues and concerns of automation to the forefront, and I am so grateful to have attended such a wonderful event.
延伸阅读：问鼎白宫第一步：华裔政坛新秀杨安泽在纽约首府的演讲
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杨安泽 (Andrew Yang) 将于2月23-24日到Ohio跟我们亚裔社区接触互动，敬请关注。具体安排如下（点击文章结尾“阅读原文”直接进入）。
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