Who’s to say the consumers are humans? Agents would be more predictable consumers (no day/night cycle, just consume 24/7), electricity is cheaper than food, and a GPU doesn’t (yet) cost as much a house.

The reason we must not do UBI is that UBI turns consuming into a product, and humans will very rapidly be outcompeted and obsoleted by more efficient consumers. It would wrap the invisible hand of the market tight around our species’ throats.

They seem to produce no surplus if they take UBI and just stimulate themselves in VR all day. Maybe I'm too pre-post-scarcity to understand.

> What's driving the economy if not consumers?

Good luck trying to explain that to boomers. They wonder why the economy is going down the drain, why we don't have children and whatnot - yeah, no surprise, we barely make rent at the end of the month.