Great post! Very much agree about the conservatism.
This is why I find it useful to do economic analyses where the variables and factors are exposed, such as in my recent AI UBI analysis, so that one needn’t assume values for those variables, but can try out a multitude of scenarios and see how the predictions change, along with having an understanding of what factors matter more than others through the derived analytic form.
For example, one thing I found was that having a Scandinavian ownership amount of AI profits (~33%), drastically reduces the AI capability needed to be productive enough to fund a UBI. As a policy, this then seems very reasonable and attainable.
Great post! Very much agree about the conservatism.
This is why I find it useful to do economic analyses where the variables and factors are exposed, such as in my recent AI UBI analysis, so that one needn’t assume values for those variables, but can try out a multitude of scenarios and see how the predictions change, along with having an understanding of what factors matter more than others through the derived analytic form.
For example, one thing I found was that having a Scandinavian ownership amount of AI profits (~33%), drastically reduces the AI capability needed to be productive enough to fund a UBI. As a policy, this then seems very reasonable and attainable.
The full paper with all the cited sources can be found here: https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.18687