The Robots are Taking Over Jobs: What’s Next for Us?

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” ― Buckminster Fuller

In May 2017, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg said in his keynote speech to Harvard’s graduating class that automation will strip most of us out of our jobs. Likewise, Tesla’s

In the future, there will be more machines and less grunt work. And it looks like the future’s happening now; AI have become smarter and robots more efficient. From telemarketers, tellers, drivers, factory workers, retail staff, fast food chef, security guards, policemen, shepherds, farmers, librarians, to even teachers, surgeons, programmers, journalists, architects, lawyers, pharmacists, soldiers, accountants — 

Yet, this shift is inevitable and even practical. AI and robots are getting cheaper and they produce faster. Machines behave as a single integrated system, they won’t demand health care, and they are far less likely to engage in bureaucracy and office politics.

Likewise, we are moving into an era where industries require less and less human workers to run daily businesses. We have seen the likes of Google, Facebook and Apple amass hundreds of billions in revenue while employing only a few thousand employees. This is in stark contrast to the 20th-century paradigm, where top companies such as General Motors employed ten times as many, yet the old giants are now earning less than the new tech firms.

Entering the age of AI and robots will be beneficial to the companies’ bottom line but undoubtedly damaging to the working class.

Enter the United Nations Human Rights Declaration Article 25: Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

In this case, automation is the incoming threat that will result in “lack of livelihood.” And speaking on behalf of wage earners, the rise of automation can account for “circumstances beyond his control.”

Instead of worrying about the upcoming AI Armageddon and mass unemployment, we should pay attention to how we can survive and thrive. As the global workforce becomes more vulnerable, concerned citizens are seeing Universal Basic Income (UBI) as the solution. UBI is no longer just a dystopian panacea. States and nations are experimenting with it as governments slowly realize that the change is imminent.

But how can we fund UBI?

If we can build up a fund on top of an asset class with high long-term growth potential, then we might be able to accumulate the wealth required to realize UBI before government actions. Among all fund types, index funds are a wiser choice for people who are risk-averse but desire stable returns.

An excellent example of such index fund is Joint Commonwealth Fund (JCF), an index funds back by cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. Since cryptocurrency is still in its infancy, people need not invest millions to ride the first waves. There’s a massive potential for exponential earnings in the next decades because the market is yet to expand.

Unlike investing in a single crypto, joining an index fund protects the investors from volatility and aftershocks from the market’s extremity. JCF’s “open” index fund holds the top 10 crypto with regular rebalancing, and is the ideal strategy for lower risk and greater earning.

Although the crypto market appears to be unstable now, we might learn a thing or two from Mark Zuckerberg on how to profit from such mega trends: take risk, invest in emerging markets, and be patient, as stability takes time. Unlike most individual coins, an index fund’s value would steadily increase as time goes, as the market becomes stable and mature. Significant returns may also be expected, due to the compounding effect of underlying assets’ growth.

A minimal of USD 300 worth of Ethereum (ETH) is all it takes to get one’s foot on the UBI door. Since JCF is an open fund, investors like you can enter at the fund’s current Net Asset Value (NAV) and redeem at NAV anytime, reducing the entry barriers while providing good liquidity.

In the spirit to realize UBI, JCF’s annual profits (NAV increase over last year) will turn into new tokens and put into a “dividends pool,” where 25% are paid out annually as dividends. The dividends are paid out in two forms: “common” (50%) and “shared” (50%) dividends. “Common” is like traditional dividends, where more dividends are paid to more asset holding. “Shared” on the other hand, distributes dividends EQUALLY among all verified token holders.

This means that getting our feet on the door as investors already qualifies us for regular dividends as passive income, which in time may become a form of basic income. To enlarge the circles of participants, 7% of all tokens are donated to social organizations at the investor’s choice, so that non-investors can also join JCF as token holders and dividend receivers.

JCF is one passive way to earn consistent dividends, thereby providing its investors as long as they steadily hold to their investment. As we can clearly see, financial stability in dramatic social changes begins with being conscious and aware of the challenge ahead, and taking actions on it.

Looking from a bigger perspective, most sovereign governments now see that doling out a universal basic income is too costly. They will have to raise taxes, enact new laws and experiment with many trials before a dependable UBI can happen. We can always wait passively for governments to figure out at our own risk. Or, we can take the future into our own hands and make UBI a reality today.