What Musk, Altman and Others Say About AI-Funded ‘Universal Basic Income’

{embedded type='node/custom_code_html' id='117300'}Silicon Valley’s latest buzzword envisions a future in which AI generates a surge of new wealth shared among the massesAI is making ever more jobs obsolete. The solution from Silicon Valley? A universal paycheck, no work required.Technology titans including Elon Musk and Sam Altman see a future flush with wealth generated by artificial intelligence. Some tech heavyweights have endorsed no-strings cash distributions for a decade, so-called universal basic income, or UBI.While many think of UBI as a taxpayer-funded system, Silicon Valley’s elite envision AI doing humans’ work, from mundane factory jobs to highly skilled white-collar roles, and funding payouts through cost savings and more revenue. Tech leaders say that revenue can be shared under a massive wealth-redistribution system.Suddenly, an idea once seen as a socialist policy that would reward idleness is one of the AI boom’s hottest acronyms.What is UBI?Economists and welfare-rights activists began advocating for UBI in the 1960s as a solution to poverty. As mainframe computers popped up in offices that same decade and sparked job-loss fears, proponents wondered if UBI could be the solution to technology displacing humans, said Karl Widerquist , a philosophy professor at Georgetown University in Qatar.Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes have spent millions over the past several years on pilot projects. Some current UBI trial programs aim to reduce poverty or respond to explosive automation, sharing donor and grant money with individuals or families.Less Work RequiredSam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, funded an experiment starting in 2016 that gave $1,000 in cash to a group of low-income individuals each month for three years. Recipients worked slightly less and mostly spent on basic necessities, said Elizabeth Rhodes , who ran the OpenResearch study.Altman said in an appearance on Theo Von’s “This Past Weekend” podcast in July that he now thinks that instead of money, everyone could receive »an ownership share in whatever the AI creates.« That would allow the wealth accumulated by AI to be spread across the population, he said, calling the idea »universal extreme wealth.«He imagined a scenario in which every human is given a trillion tokens, the basic unit of information that large language models use, each year to sell or treat as personal wealth—an alternative to all wealth being consolidated in the “normal capitalistic system.”Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, touts “universal high income,” the concept that AI will automate most production and the public can share in the revenue.Musk said at a forum in May that universal income could create a »Star Trek future« with »a level of prosperity and hopefully happiness that we can’t quite imagine yet.« (He also warned that if handled incorrectly, we could end up with a »Terminator« future.)Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, has said up to half of the work at the company is now done by AI. He is an evangelist for universal basic income and said during the pandemic that he sees Covid-19 stimulus checks as a model for broader income distribution.He wrote that automation will drive income inequality and necessitate supplemental income “for those who cannot be retrained, and even those traditionally not compensated for raising a family or volunteering to help others,” in a Fortune article . He has said that AI will generate wealth by lowering costs for companies.The CriticsNot all of Silicon Valley—or the public writ large—is on board. Critics think universal income is politically unrealistic and allows tech companies to justify increasing unemployment and wealth disparities.David Autor, a labor economist at MIT, said the hypothetical society in which the majority of income is distributed from a few sources is frightening and a »political fantasy land.«AI leaders support universal income because »they think they’re gonna put everyone out of work and they don’t have a better idea for what to do about that,« he said.He wondered what would happen to people outside of the U.S., who could lose their work without receiving universal income.Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen argued in his 2023 “techno-optimist manifesto” that humans need to work to feel fulfilled.»Man was meant to be useful , to be productive , to be proud ,« he wrote.Andreessen thinks AI will transform almost every job. He wrote on Substack that UBI is unnecessary because the government is likely to subsidize most industries.David Sacks, President Trump’s AI czar, said on his “All-In” podcast last year that tech magnates seeking fortune from the AI boom use the idea of handing out money to assuage concerns about job losses, but that doing so doesn’t serve society.He posted on X in June that universal income is a “fantasy” of “welfare” that is »not going to happen.«Write to Josie Reich at josie.reich@wsj.com