King’s College London
Some of the strongest advocates of a universal basic income (UBI) are the AI leaders whose innovations threaten to eradicate millions of jobs.
A prime example of this is the involvement of OpenAI’s Sam Altman in OpenResearch, the architects of a 2020-23 study which gave an unconditional payment of $1000 a month to 3000 citizens of Texas and Illinois. One can be cynical about Silicon Valley’s motives but on this issue it is in agreement with some of its most fervent critics about the profound changes to the workforce that AI will bring about.
As I outlined in my book on UBI released last year, this reflects long-held concerns about the impact of the wider digital economy on labour conditions in the twenty-first century. The advent of global digital networks in the 1990s enabled the rapid scaling-up of business activity from local to global markets. Commentary on the nascent Internet celebrated the opportunities that it afforded to small, innovative companies.
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