I responded to this in /r/futurology over at reddit as well. I see some serious problems with this proposal. First of all, though Jaron Lanier is quoted and referenced, the author ignores that he has written a book proposing exactly the opposite of what is proposed here. Lanier suggests the deployment of a network wide micropayment system that backlinks to original authors and data collectors so that whoever inputs into the network is paid every time their work is referenced. You'll find a description of his approach at this Harvard affiliated website:

http://www.niemanlab.org/2013/05/jaron-lanier-wants-to-build.../

Of course, one could posit an ideological challenge to this approach. But ignoring its similarity to communism, and forgetting the values laden notion that people 'should' work to sustain their daily bread as humanity has always toiled. Or even pure Libertarian notions extolling private property rights over all. One can instead view this from a practical socio-economic standpoint where the proposal would incentivize yet more centralization of wealth and power. Exactly the opposite of what the author purports to promote.

Extrapolating, we would see a three tier global society enshrined - one that is already well on its way to creation - where an elite of royalty made up of the super-wealthy would be taxed to sustain a middle class of governing managers who then distribute a dole out to the general populace. In that sense, it would further the development of a new global neo-feudalism whereby government becomes a vassal to the interests of the super-rich and the populace becomes the vassal's new serfdom.

But there's a difference. Unlike days of feudal yore, where serfs were necessary farmers who fed even the wealthy, in the situation you propose this new underclass of serfs would serve no purpose whatsoever to the global elite. It would only further divorce the powerful from the populace.

Regardless of whether the populace might be engaged in private off-economy activity that benefits this bottom tier of society, there would be no means to track value creation and thus it would reinforce the sense that these people are nothing more than 'useless eaters' (as Henry Kissenger liked to call the underclasses of society). I can't imagine a better situation to engender elite distrust and antipathy for those on the dole. It would serve to promote triumphalist perception among the elite that they deserve the gains of technology above and beyond the bottom tier, accelerating inequality to global dystopic extremes.

Ultimately, I fear your proposed utopia would only reinforce a mindset among the elite that promotes such social-Darwinist values as Eugenics, walking the masses straight to a global genocide. And lest you think that an extreme position, I point you to Samantha Powers' book, "A Problem From Hell," where she listed eleven genocides across the twentieth century and argued that there is plenty of reason to believe that this outcome is not an aberration of society but instead central to the divisions of class your proposal would only further solidify.

An interesting and thought-provoking article that glosses nicely over why this will not happen without violence:

How would we pay for it?

We could start by getting corporations to pay their taxes.

Ask any corporation and they'll tell you they're paying their taxes. They're right. I'm a corporation and so's my wife and we pay our taxes. Those taxes allow us to avoid great swaths of money that we would pay if we were not corporations. So it's not about "pay your taxes" it's about "we're going to rewrite the entire tax code to punish innovation and success because here in Murica it's no longer about merit." Or, at least, that's how EVERYONE (not just the Republicans, not just the Democrats, but everyone) will spin it.

At a fundamental level, this is an essay about how the world would be better if those in power were removed from power. If those at the top of the economic heap were brought down to the level of those nearer the middle of the economic heap. The essay is wholly correct but glosses over the massive upheaval necessary to cause such conditions to exist. It might not look exactly like Moscow 1917, but it'll look reminiscent. And then, much like utopias everywhere, despots beget despots, oligarchies beget kleptocracies and the new boss looks a lot like the old boss.

Paul Gilding has a great read called "The Great Disruption" in which he argues that the climate crisis will actually create a lot of opportunities and a reconfiguration of the social order. How does he jive that with water wars, HIV/AIDS and all the other problems the world faces? Well, in Chapter 3 he dances around a fairly simple maxim:

A whole bunch of people are going to die.

To his credit, "those people" are primarily 3rd worlders in Africa, South America, India and China... most of which do not read Paul Gilding. Nonetheless, there's a bit of Clair Wolfe to all this:

"America is at that awkward stage; it's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards."

Like any futurist viewpoint, there's little stock we can place in specifics. Based on changing roles of work in the past, there's little doubt that we can expect more change. What will that change look like? We don't get all get a basic income yet, but most U.S. citizens have some form of safety net at all times. That safety net isn't by any means equal. It's possible that the net will continue to develop toward a support that meets peoples needs. From my understanding of many U.S. social services, information sharing is a large issue. Medicare claims get backlogged, VA hospitals still use paper filing systems, etc... I sometimes wonder that once these systems get updated more folks will get what they need. Isn't that what this proposal is about? Getting people what they need. It's then up to them to go out and get what they want.

You end up running into the same problem that Europe is complaining about now. Immigration.

Now that you've set up a basic income you get a flood of immigrants coming in to claim their piece of the pie.

I'm totally thinking out loud here, but shouldn't an unconditional basic income also be tied in with something like a population cap? Or reproductive limit on every couple? Because a basic income would remove a natural discouragement to making more babies, namely, that some people choose not to reproduce because they can't afford to raise that child. But now that child will be funded and provided for by the state. So, there's substantially less discouragement or natural resistance to big families. And I personally believe that the last thing we need is to incentivize more population.

I couldn't imagine cataloguing all the unforeseen consequences of a guaranteed, unconditional basic income but I think we should have some sort of meaningful experiment.