First things first, please.

CNN published an article about “robots are coming for your job, too”, andthe consequent need to accept the concept of a Universal Basic Income (UBI). In my opinion, that is one more articles that gets the problem backwards. Here are some quotes to explain what I mean (emphasis mine):

• “When you accept [that robots will take most jobs], then quickly you have to say OK, then, how are we going to start valuing our time?
• “Creating a population that can subsist on a basic income, without work, would end up reshaping how society works altogether”
• “For some, UBI represents an admission of failure - an assertion that most people will have nothing of economic value to contribute to society”
• “We will have to figure out how to be happy with the robots and the automation, because they are coming”

Reality, instead, is that:

• it is very, very, very hard to deny that on one hand, society needs a big reshaping anyway. On the other it is already happening, but not in the best way
• contributing to society? Sure. But the very concept that the only, or main/mandatory way to do it is with the kind of things that are considered of economic “value” today is… hard to describe with polite terms, sorry
• Ethics and meaning of work aside, UBI may be the most realistic solution to the PHYSICAL constraints we have to face today