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.”
Two guys in papier-mâché masks from Saguenay, Quebec, have been playing music together for 20 years since they were 13 years old. For most of that time, they existed in relative obscurity. Then, KEXP posted a video of them playing four songs and the internet lost its mind. As of this week, that video has over ten million views and their song Fabienk is No. 1 on Spotify’s Viral 50 – Global chart. Dave Grohl of Nirvana and Foo Fighters fame has said they “absolutely blew his f*cking mind”. The band is Angine de Poitrine, and if you haven’t watched the full set yet, stop reading this, go watch it, and then come back. I’ll wait. Or just listen to it while you read this essay
AI is going to play a much bigger role in shaping our decisions, work, and daily lives, not because it becomes an allknowing overlord, but because it steadily reduces how much human labor is needed to produce the same output while our institutions still treat wages as the primary way people access the economy. That mismatch is where disruption comes from. People will embrace AI wherever it removes friction. It will automate busywork, speed up writing and analysis, improve service, and make individuals more capable. Businesses will adopt it because it saves time and money. Workers will adopt it because it helps them keep up. Competitive pressure will make adoption spread even in places that feel unready. Resistance will rise too, because the benefits won’t be shared evenly. AI will amplify the power of those who already have leverage, while threatening those whose livelihoods depend on tasks that can be replicated, automated, or made cheaper. Pushback will show up in labor action, regulation, institutional bans, and culture. People will defend “human-only” value because humans want dignity, trust, and connection.
What Artemis II and the Return to the Moon Should Remind Us About Ending Poverty
As I write this, four astronauts are hurtling toward the Moon aboard the Orion spacecraft, named Integrity by its crew. On April 1, 2026, NASA’s Artemis II launched from Kennedy Space Center — the first crewed mission beyond low Earth orbit in more than fifty years. For the first time since Apollo 17 returned to Earth in December 1972, human beings are returning to the Moon.
Watching that launch, I felt something I haven’t felt in years. I grew up on Star Trek and The Right Stuff. I grew up believing I might one day work on the Moon, or fly a spaceship, or at the very least live in a world that took its cues from the Federation rather than centibillionaires. That feeling where your chest tightens and your eyes sting because you’re watching your species do something extraordinary — that’s what programs like Apollo and Artemis II give me. And it’s that same feeling that drives my work on universal basic income.
The connection between these two things is not merely a metaphor. It is historical.
In August 1969, three days before announcing his Family Assistance Plan — a guaranteed income floor for American families with children — Richard Nixon asked himself why he was doing it. He had doubts. There was no airtight evidence it would work. There was no overwhelming political mandate. There was only the momentum of a decision-making process that had reached the point where it would actually be proposed. He’d already decided. But why?
As Daniel Patrick Moynihan recounted in The Politics of a Guaranteed Income, Nixon’s reasoning came down to three propositions. First, the existing welfare system was destroying the poor, especially the Black poor, and this was becoming the most serious social problem of the time. Second, it was time to bring the South back into the mainstream of American life, and what fundamentally kept the South apart was poverty. Third, it was necessary to prove that government could work — that there was an answer to what Nixon called the “crisis of confidence in the capacity of government to do its job.”
And then Moynihan recorded the crucial line: “The moonshot had been one kind of success; a guaranteed income would be another, at least as important, surely more difficult. America needed some successes.”
Nixon understood something we seem to have forgotten. The Moon landing wasn’t just a technical achievement. It was proof that a democratic government could marshal collective resources, set an audacious goal, and deliver. It restored faith in what we could accomplish together. A guaranteed income, Nixon believed, would do the same — but for the ground beneath our feet rather than the sky above our heads.
He was right. And over half a century later, we still haven’t done it.
Julius Moorman recorded this interview with Scott Santens on March 17, 2026. To see the full interview on You Tube, click here.
Here are the chapters via YouTube to get an idea of what we discussed and when: 0:00 How Scott Got Into UBI 3:22 Did AI and COVID Reignite the UBI Debate? 6:40 What UBI Actually Means 8:08 UBI Is a Floor, Not a Ceiling 13:41 Why UBI Creates Better Work Incentives 17:36 How the Current Welfare System Punishes Work 19:29 What Would UBI Actually Cost? 26:08 Do We Need to Raise Taxes? 31:12 Immigration and UBI 42:32 Alaska Has Had UBI Since 1982 43:08 Elon Musk’s “Universal High Income” Is Just Marketing 52:06 What Alaska Tells Us About Inflation 53:58 Do People Choose Better Jobs Under UBI? 57:51 Will People Lose Their Purpose Without Work? 1:01:33 What Happens to Jobs That Can’t Be Automated? 1:02:26 Is UBI a Left or Right Issue? 1:06:53 Where to Find Scott
