I'm more and more convinced that a UBI is the only way to deal with this problem, so the unemployed have a buffer to retrain to a new skillset.
Of course, replacing the current social safety net (food stamps, et. al.) with a UBI would likely result in the trimming of government bureaucratic jobs. Everything's a trade off.
I would take a look at this argument done by Obama's main economist. He basically argues that UBI isn't actually that good because it doesn't shrink the gap as much as current systems (progressive taxes and the like). Plus it is a good read anyways because it is a much longer detailed analysis.
"The issue is not that automation will render the vast majority of the population unemployable. Instead, it is that workers will either lack the skills or the ability to successfully match with the good, high paying jobs created by automation."
So those who are doing jobs that AI can do better and more cheaply than any human, they are going to somehow gain skills and/or ability to perform new good, high paying jobs created by automation? I don't buy it. Analogues to those hypothetical future high-quality jobs already exist, so why aren't the people in the soon-to-be obsolete jobs already doing the existent high quality jobs? Do they not like money? Training for these jobs has never been cheaper!
Time is money. The actual monetary cost of training is irrelevant if you don't have the time to actually do it (learning new skills has never paid the bills in the right now timeframe).
Why would it be inherently different this time? Millions of farmers managed to learn new skills (or at least their children did).
I think we'll eventually have work for everyone who wants it (but hopefully you won't have to work to live). The future will probably have a lot of demand for "artisanal" products (ie. produced by humans).
This seems to make the mistake, I believe, of focusing on "inequality" as a problem.
Inequality is not a problem. Poverty is. If everyone has everything they need and most things they want, but a few super rich people own entire planets, I fail to see how that's not a utopian future.
I would also argue that inheriting large wealth is not a problem. At some point the money had to be earned. If the inheritors do not use it wisely it will be gone within a few generations.
Imagine a farmer working his entire life on his farm. Now that he is reaching the end of his lifespan he wants his children to benefit from his work. He built the house and everything himself.
Why should the government take a chunk out of that? One might argue that the children do not work and therefore this "unearned" income is unfair because it's not possible to choose whether you are born into a wealthy family.
However it is both earned by the work of the father and already taxed by the government through his income.
By the time the father dies the children are likely already 40 to 50 years old but they benefited from his little wealth while he was still alive. The inheritance tax does not affect this. It only discourages using the inheritance efficiently over multiple generations.
"Choosing" (even if you have a choice at that point) UBI when only 10% of the population is employed anymore is easy.
The question is when do you start implementing UBI? When only 80% of the population have jobs anymore? 60%? 40%?
Because when you do implement it, the money that goes to the unemployed people is going to have to come from those that still make money. And they will probably be pretty pissed off about it, too.
Also, in a two-party system country like the U.S., the party you vote for may literally decide this outcome. Like say 70% of the people still have jobs and they don't want UBI, and the Democrats support switching to UBI after the election. It's very likely that the Democrats will not win an election again until a majority of the population supports implementing UBI, no matter what other terrible things the Republican party promises to do, while also promising not to implement UBI.
Well, arguably we currently have a safety net that is less efficient (in terms of bureaucracy/maintenance cost) than a UBI would be, so... how 'bout now?
Of course, replacing the current social safety net (food stamps, et. al.) with a UBI would likely result in the trimming of government bureaucratic jobs. Everything's a trade off.