And the fired workers can start their own business using AI as well and sell to oh wait. No more human customers have money. Hey what if we give some AI bots some digital money and humans can compete to get them to buy stuff?

I think there are a lot of problems with the idea of basic income and I’m not a supporter of the idea. That said, what you just said seems to make perfect economic sense to me. If you give everyone money, the make companies compete to get it, you do end up being able to take advantage of the efficiencies of capitalism to feed and clothe the world.

For me the number one problem though is that people need to be useful, have purpose and feel connected to their community. Basic income and high unemployment is an economic system that screams, “you are a worthless mouth to feed!”

Somehow we need to do better.

> Basic income and high unemployment is an economic system that screams, “you are a worthless mouth to feed!”

No, it's the wealthy screaming that as propaganda.

If a rich kid does nothing with their life but spend inherited money they don't get the message from society that they're a worthless mouth to feed, but if we decide to redistribute the gains from society's historical labor back to people today the messaging is suddenly different because the result doesn't suit the interests of those with aristocratic aims.

We do better by not buying into the bullshit.

Was anyone naive enough to think otherwise? Unless there was a law preventing it, most employers would jump to do it.