> For years, I opposed Universal Basic Income, firmly and reflexively.

Bold to open your economic diatribe by discrediting your own economic reasoning.

I don't buy into alarmism at all.

First of all it's not just the US but the entire world. Trick is, as always, simply not to do worse than others.

As for tens of millions being unemployable... so what? What are the practical problems it creates? Crime? Highly unlikely. These people are older and more individualistic and serious property crime is a collective affair. Crime is low these days in general so even a considerable increase in it won't be some sort of unmanageable disaster, America has been there before.

I can't think of much else in terms of problems it could create.

Consumption and thus "keeping economy going" is currently maintained by people who make income from capital and it will only become more so. Employment as a tool of distributing money for consumption will simply become less relevant.

For next generation, it will be easier because surely personal service will get revived as a mass occupation - and there, having a person is the whole point so it's safe from automation by definition.

Have you learned about the Great Depression?

You need not look further to find your first "practical problems"

Great Depression is thoroughly unrelated. It was because of excess agricultural production by overleveraged farmers that forced them into further undermining themselves by overproduction, and eventual contagion of bad debt of those farmers propagating across the economy - made worse by unhinged, and unregulated, leveraged stock trading.

It did not happen because of sudden productivity increase that put too many people out of work. No economic crises ever happened that way, and there is no reason to believe any will. This is what every economy strives to achieve and it's kinda stupid to be afraid of it. Some people can be hit hard, and it always happens during every technological revolution, but with sufficient investment into predictive policing and law enforcement overall, this is a manageable risk.

Surely, a stock market shock can happen other way around - if AI will turn out to be a flop - but i believe this is not the risk you are talking about.

You're looking at causes, that's the wrong side. Your prior claim was about how you couldn't see the downsides of high unemployment.

Look at what happened during the Great Depression, when unemployment was high. It doesn't matter how we get to high unemployment or depression status, but for sure there will be a lot of bad things, many more than you proclaim.

Look to the Great Depression to see what the human condition and spirit was like if you are having trouble imagining possibilities

During the Great Depression there was also an economic collapse with deep decreases in production and consumption of just about everything - except useless production of what was already overproduced anyway. That could naturally make people depressed, strive for radical changes like Communism, etc.

But we are speaking simply of mass unemployment. That alone is not enough to cause widespread despair.

Unemployment is one of the conditions

I think a simple question, where do the unemployed eat and sleep during extended, high-unemployment?

Are breadlines in 21st century America not a thing you foresee in a 21st century depression?

If there is a plenty of revenue, profits, and taxes paid by businesses - and if there won't be, there's nothing to talk about - it will mean there will be no AI productivity boost - why won't society find something for those people to do? Even if solution is as simple as "conscript men to the army and send them on conquest, and pay women to have children"? Older ones usually have enough investments so in conditions of economic boom => rapid stock appreciation, they will be OK.

> Crime is low these days in general

Crime is low where income is adequate, Crime is (very) high otherwise

And indeed, another counterpoint is Covid itself. There were massive cash payments, inequality and poverty, especially among disadvantaged groups, fell to historic lows - and yet there WAS a massive crime wave.

Not true; take the GFC: tens of millions lost jobs with no prospect of employment, millions lost homes, and there wasn't any serious support program (say, similar to Covid era cash payments). And yet, there was no crime wave at all.