Top AI figures urge governments to enforce universal income

Artificial intelligence scientist Geoffrey Hinton, known as the “Godfather of AI,” is urging the British government to enforce a universal basic income (UBI) to cope with the impact of AI technology.

Universal basic income is a social welfare system in which the government provides every citizen with a standard minimum income. These payments are unconditional and transferred to citizens on a regular basis without any pre-qualification. The concept is in keeping with the Marxist ideal of wealth redistribution and has been proposed by socialist figures such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

Hinton told BBC Newsnight that a universal basic income is necessary because he is “very worried about AI taking lots of mundane jobs.” The scientist explained that AI would benefit the rich and not “the people whose jobs get lost.” If wealth is not redistributed, Hinton warned, “that’s going to be very bad for society.”

“I was consulted by people in Downing Street and I advised them that universal basic income was a good idea,” he said.

“Software that can think and learn will do more and more of the work"

But Hinton is not the only tech expert using AI to push the idea. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has long been an advocate for a universal basic income, also claiming to be concerned about the future of employment.

“My work at OpenAI reminds me every day about the magnitude of the socioeconomic change that is coming sooner than most people believe,” said Altman in 2021. “Software that can think and learn will do more and more of the work that people now do.”

The OpenAI CEO believes “that if you could just give people money, they would make good decisions, and the market would do its thing.”

But critics say the push for a universal basic income by major tech chiefs is to create a more powerful technocracy. According to one industry source, Altman and his colleagues hope to “become so immensely powerful that they run every non-AI company (employing people) out of business and every American worker to unemployment. So powerful that a percentage of OpenAI’s (and its peers’) income could bankroll UBI for every citizen of America.”

The source told CNBC that the tax revenue generated by AI tech giants will be irresistible to politicians, whose popularity will skyrocket off the universal basic income their voters receive. 

“Sam is no different from any other capitalist trying to persuade the government to allow an oligarchy.” 

Universal "high" income?

Neuralink CEO Elon Musk has also said that “[u]niversal income will be necessary over time if AI takes over most human jobs." In November, the serial entrepreneur changed his prediction to a “universal high income,” though he did not explain the difference between the two concepts.

“We won’t have universal basic income. We’ll have universal high income,” Musk said. “In some sense, it’ll be somewhat of a leveler, an equalizer.”