AI leaders keep saying UBI is necessary. This pledge asks them to prove it.
I’ve been working on universal basic income full-time since 2013. Thirteen years. In that time, I’ve watched the conversation shift from “that’s a crazy idea” to “that’s inevitable.” Especially among the people building AI. And I’ve watched that shift accomplish very little.
That’s the problem I want to talk about today.
It is now routine for AI leaders to say that something like UBI will be necessary. Elon Musk recently posted that “Universal HIGH INCOME via checks issued by the Federal government is the best way to deal with unemployment caused by AI.” He’s been saying versions of this since 2016. Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind and a Nobel laureate, told CNN we may need “universal high income” so that AI’s productivity gains are distributed across the economy. Mustafa Suleyman, now CEO of Microsoft AI, warned in 2023 that AI would create “a serious number of losers” and called UBI a measure we need to start talking about “in a serious way.”
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