The emergence of artificial intelligence and robotics is forcing us to face something that everyone felt: millions of jobs will soon disappear. From factory floors to legal offices, from truck driving to financial analysis, AI is learning to do our work faster, cheaper and often better. This is not a future problem, now it is happening. The real question is what we are going to do about it, because the old idea of tie the survival to a payment check will break.
Many public personalities offer great ideas. My own favorite solution is universal basic income (UBI)that I have promoted for more than a decade. It is where everyone receives a guaranteed monthly payment of the government, without attached ropes, enough to cover the basic concepts. UC Berkeley Finance Professor, Mark Garman has suggested a universal basic capital, giving all assets and dividends income producers through a superfund. The founder of Xprize, Peter Diamandis, in X recently promoted universal basic property, where we all have a participation in companies that promote the AI revolution. Operai’s CEO, Sam Altman, talks about Universal Extreme Wealth, where AI’s productivity is so massive that everyone lives in abundance and luxury.
All of these have merit, and I like them all. But putting real effective in people’s pockets through UBI remains the most practical and immediate way of keeping society stable as AI takes over the economy.
Ubi is simple. All receive a monthly check, without rings or bureaucracy. If you wish, you would also support Crypto payments and the use of blockchain. Anyway, if the machines are doing most of the work and generating wealth, we must cut people directly to the money earned. And in this way, no one falls through the cracks because they did not complete the correct form or meet some arbitrary requirements, as often happens in the welfare system. Ultimately, it is not just survival, it is freedom. With basic financial security, people could spend more time creating, learning, taking care of their loved ones or simply living without constant routine.
UBI critics increase the cost, inflation or fear that people stop working. But the real world tests, from the Alaska oil dividend to the pilot programs around the world, tell a different story. People do not suddenly. Most continue working, start business or invest in skills. What changes are that they are less stressed, healthier and more willing to assume productive risks.
Alternatives to UBI
Mark Garman’s universal basic capital has attractive. Giving people a participation in a superfund derived from assets in automation -dependent companies could generate long -term wealth and make everyone participate in market profits. It is a way to fix the imbalance between those who live outside capital gains and those who live outside wages. But the markets crash. Dividends dry. And the accounts configuration, the teaching of financial education and asset management adds complexity that UBI avoids.
The promotion of Peter Diamandis of universal basic property is also attractive: we will directly have part of the companies promoted by AI and the automated industries of the future. That aligns the interests of the public with technological progress and could turn the entire country into shareholders. But convincing existing companies to give a significant capital is an steep climb. And even if they did, ownership bets do not reliably pay the rent without selling them.
The universal richness of Sam Altman is the boldest vision, a future as abundant that everyone lives as today’s billionaires. The AI drives the cost of goods and services near zero, and money becomes less important because everything is almost free. He is inspiring, but far away. We cannot bet on the next 10 or 20 years in a perfect utopia that appears exactly when we need it, although supporting the long -term idea.
Spreading wealth
All these ideas share the same moral nucleus: if AI will create an unimaginable wealth, it cannot accumulate in some corporate bank accounts. It has to extend widely or society will fracture when the unemployed collects the forks and the revolt. But UBI is the one who can work now, to keep people free of concerns.
First, it is liquidity. People who lose their work for automation do not need a portfolio of actions: they need money for groceries and rent this month. Second, it is simple. You can send cash to people today without building new systems from scratch. Third, respect the individual choice. People can decide for themselves to pay the debt, take a class, help their family or start a lateral bustle.
Ubi’s beauty is that it does not prevent us from trying other models later. We can start with cash security, then layer in investment capital, shared property, cryptographic projects or new distribution systems. It is the security network that makes everything else possible.
I am not against a future of universal property or extreme wealth. I would love to see it. But while we wait for that future, and we hope we work as we think: Ubi can make sure no one stays behind. You can maintain the stable economy and buy time to build whatever comes later.
It is not about “free money” in the pejorative sense. It is about recognizing that in a world where machines can produce almost everything, our sense of human value must be separated from having a job. The direct cash is the fastest, cleaner and fairer way to ensure that the benefits of AI reach everyone, not only the handful of people who have the machines.
If we do this correctly, if we make the AI revolution work for all of us, then perhaps the abundance of Sam Altman will not be just a dream. It could be the next natural step.
