A leading expert claims that immigration could be ended by the impending Artificial Intelligence revolution. Zoltan Istvan, an independent running as a Presidential candidate in the United States election to raise awareness of transhumanism, claims that worldwide movement would likely almost end with the rise of robots.
Istvan says that as more businesses choose to use machines as cheap labor, there is likely to be a halt to immigration between nations because countries will no longer need to accept foreign workers. Istvan believes that with the upcoming proliferation of robots, which will take on many low-paying, menial jobs, the reasons that many countries allow immigrants to come to their shores in the first place will no longer apply.
Istvan says that over the last 100 years, countries have generally allowed immigrants in to help them to build up the nation’s economy while they work and pay taxes. In a world where software and robots take an increasing number of jobs, though, there would be less need for immigrants who were anything other than software engineers or robot makers.
The American-Hungarian politician also favors the idea of a Universal Basic Income for all people when AI inevitably puts most of society out of work. He admits that all countries need to do the same or UBI would send more people rushing to the United States and potentially result in increasing the divide between rich and poor.