Yang foresees that artificially intelligent software and robots will soon be better at a great many jobs that humans have traditionally done. The jobs that remain will either be beyond the cognitive capacity of most human beings or will be exceptionally non-remunerative. The economy, in the process of becoming more efficient at serving human desires, will drive an increasing proportion of humanity permanently off the road not merely to prosperity but even to subsistence. When he has finished laying out his case, Yang admits that a friend told him he should retitle his book, “We’re F—ed.”
And yet, surprisingly, Yang is relatively upbeat about our society’s ability to respond to the challenge — if we act quickly. The last third of the book focuses on solutions, the most important of which is a guaranteed Universal Basic Income. Paying everyone a minimal level of sustenance would prevent large numbers of people from falling into absolute penury, and facilitate their continued employment in jobs that would otherwise be insufficiently remunerative. He goes on to propose a host of further transformations to health care, education, and other sectors of society, all under the rubric of building “human capitalism.”
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