The third panelist, Adam Kieper, offered another solution: Basic Income.

Adam Kieper: Some people have begun to talk about a universal income guarantee — basic income is a potential policy solution to a future in which nobody has to work in some distant future because productivity is so high all of our basic needs are taken care of and fewer and fewer people need jobs. I think it’s very likely that we’ll hear people from both the left and the right really start to discuss and analyze and debate guaranteed income in the years ahead.

The discussion didn’t take years to come. The discussion continued right then and there as Rep. Don Beyer, a Democrat from Virginia, chimed in.

Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA): Mr. Keiper, you wrote about Universal Basic income and negative income tax — -you know, what do you do when actually a significant part of the population doesn’t need to be employed. And you wrote also, you said that it has been discussed favorably for various reasons by prominent conservative and libertarian thinkers. Can you expand why they would be for that? I understand the left leaning Progressive but… Mr. Kieper: [Guaranteed basic income] is something that Hayek talked about, something that Milton Friedman spoke about favorably, something that Charles Murray has written about favorably…Folks on the Libertarian side of the spectrum see it as a couple things. One it’s a way to it continue to encourage innovation. And two…Friedman’s approach, it would be less complicated than continuing the bureaucratic system of welfare…He thought that if you replaced it with something simple and clean and seamless that would be an improvement…It’s interesting and surprising how you get people on the left and the right talking about this with interest — very little interest in the moderate middle, though I think that’s likely to change in the years ahead.

What did the other panelists think of Basic Income?

Although “not anxious to go there anytime soon”, Dr. Holzer agreed “I understand that this could be necessary down the road.” Dr. McAfee didn’t speak specifically on basic income during the hearing but in a past TED talk he did, he concluded that, “If we are moving into an economy that’s heavy on technology and light on labor — and we are, then we have to consider some more radical interventions, for example, something more radical like a guaranteed minimum income.”

Senator Michael Lee gave the closing remarks:

Sen. Lee (R-UT): The value of this technology to the world economy and to our domestic economy is of course enormous. The impact of this technology will go far beyond the bottom lines of businesses though. It is, and it will continue, to have an impact on the nature of work, and by extension, the ways in which we live and define our lives. But it will also impact on society more broadly, and our social safety net, as some individuals see their jobs becoming automated. Even, and especially those who don’t ever see their jobs as the type that could become automated. You ask most people if they are likely to be replaced by robots, most people are probably going to say “No”. A much higher percentage of them are actually likely to see their jobs replaced, perhaps within their lifetimes. The American people have been resilient, and they’ve been more than patient. But they’re competing in the 21st century economy, while relying on a fraying 20th century safety net. We need a safety net policy, or a set of policies, that are as flexible, and nimble, and diverse, and as adaptable to technological change as our society and economy are becoming. And this is something that’s going to need the insights of both parties to get it right. And not jut both parties but also the insights of the brightest minds in our country.

The meeting was adjourned with a blue gavel, 3D printed at a local public school.