Bombs are falling across the Middle East. I am concerned about this. What we continue to have in the United States is non-representative government where the voting box has been ignored and powerful people are in pursuit of their interests independently of voters.

That’s why the passage of the SAVE Act, which supposedly restores the fidelity of voting in the United States, is sorely needed.

In the meantime, America and the rest of the world watches breathlessly as bombs are falling in various portions of the Middle East today. I can only hope that our leaders are trying to end violence as quickly as possible with less death and destruction rather than with more of that. I hope that today’s violence will prevent future worse violence. People on the ground in the Middle East, however, care more about what is happening to them today than they care about what good may come out of this in the far away future. If it ever does.

Of additional concern to me this week is a report I heard about how UBI is coming to the U.S. Earlier this week as I did a morning workout routine and tuned into AM radio, there was a broadcast predicting UBI as an economic soulution to the lukewarm job market, where people are facing further erosion of job opportunities as AI moves into position and displaces some people’s economic niche as word-smiths in law and other boilerplate language construction efforts.

Years ago reports were drawn up by independent experts that went into business in order to serve their clients. Their job was to learn about their specialty and to describe investigation outcomes in fields like law, engineering, architecture, and medicine. After the computer age got going, the word processor desk top computer made short work of cutting and pasting ordinary descriptions with a few edits to customize findings. Now AI is expected to go through the motions of reporting that experts once did with similar word constructions.

The way that I heard it explained is that you won’t have to hire an expensive architect but instead you can get an AI program to give you the same basic language constructions that an architect would have if you want to revise your house’s floorplan or add a house addition or remodel your kitchen. In theory, this would save you a lot of money.

A lot of information about similar projects is on file somewhere and an AI can access it and viola, you don’t need to hire an expert. Or maybe, just to be on the safe side, a final rundown by an engineer might be wise to make sure it won’t catch on fire. Because the AI doesn’t care and doesn’t know. It’s just providing you with a word construction of what was known before by experts that once did this kind of work. And they will be unemployed. Oh well!

I personally don’t believe that AI will be so successful as that especially since people with judgement are required somewhere in the reporting process to care about what is really being built or reported. Information has consequences.

Also UBI (as a stopgap in the face of AI job displacements) can’t contribute to the economy because it is not productive in a virtuous way. Adam Smith, the writer of The Wealth of Nations was wise to recognize that government workers act in the political sphere and not in the economic sphere. Paying their salary pulls money from the economy and puts it into politics. Similarly, paying everyone UBI gets rid of an incentive for people to work to produce or do anything in the economy. UBI stimulates the political and not the economic sphere.

In order to prevent theft of expertise, protections within industries against stealing expert boilerplate reporting might be wise at this point. Otherwise, all kitchen remodels may be similarly bad. Or medical reports may leave out a few important details. Or your less expensive will may overlook some important property that should be addressed with regard to your estate.

Also, there’s the problem of providing enough energy to fuel the AI revolution which uses cloud storage, as everyone else worries about their next meal and how to afford to heat their house.

Meanwhile, what about the economy? Destroying middle class expert jobs leaves a lot less virtuous money circulating in the economy. Fewer connections between people would not be a good outcome of an AI industry. Why can’t AI just be a tool for experts to use rather that trying to replace them entirely with it?

The political sphere and the economic sphere are both complex adaptive systems. They will respond to large changes eventually with sudden adjustments that are unpredictable and uncontrollable. Having voting with fidelity allows feedback into the political sphere and we need that feedback to prevent sudden political change from happening. Similarly, markets allow feedback into the economic sphere where connections between people in making exchanges are important. Getting rid of markets is unwise. To learn more about how the economy and politic work together to create the world around you buy a copy of Political Catsup with Economy Fries available at Amazon.com.