Are We Going to Have a Universal Basic Income?

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I think we are quite right to focus on the next 50 years and not think too far ahead, because we just don't know what technology we like. The jobs that be hardest to replace by machines are gardening and plumbing. And so I think plumbers will survive for longer than lawyers. We have AI that can beat the greatest chess player of all time, Gary Kasparov. You know, a technical knowledge based game show here in America, it beats go, the best goal players, but it can't unload a dishwasher. Yeah, so going back to those kind of I think you're boss to mass rather crazy ideas.

Shermer and Rees discuss: existential threats • overpopulation • biodiversity loss • climate change • AI and self-driving cars, robots, and unemployment • his bet with Steven Pinker • his disagreement with Richard Dawkins • how science works as a communal activity • scientific creativity • science communication • science education • why there aren’t more women and people of color in STEM fields • verification vs. falsification • Bayesian reasoning and scientific progress • Model Dependent Realism and the nature of reality Fermi’s Paradox • why he’s an atheist but wants to be buried in the Presbyterian church in which he was raised • mysterian mysteries.

Martin Rees is Astronomer Royal, former President of the Royal Society, Fellow (and former Master) of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics at the University of Cambridge. He sits as a member of the UK House of Lords. He is the author of many bestselling popular science books, including: On the Future; Just Six Numbers; Before the Beginning; and Our Final Hour. His newest book is If Science is to Save Us.