A Universal Basic Income (UBI) has long been proposed as a way to cushion the blow of jobs lost to automation. Under that model, everyone receives a modest monthly payment – enough to cover basic needs and prevent extreme poverty.
But Elon Musk has gone further. On April 16, he posted on X:
Universal HIGH INCOME via checks issued by the Federal government is the best way to deal with unemployment caused by AI.
AI/robotics will produce goods & services far in excess of the increase in the money
supply, so there will not be inflation.
Rather than a subsistence stipend, Universal High Income (UHI) would be a level of income allowing ordinary people to live well in a world where machines do most of the work. Musk has also said that AI and robotics are the only things that can solve the massive U.S. debt crisis.
That sounds promising, but where will the government get the money to pay the UHI? Critics say any government that tried it would go bankrupt. There are also other concerns, which will be addressed in Part 2 of this article. Here we will look at the financial underpinnings: why UHI is even thinkable, why AI forces a reexamination of how money enters the economy, why the current system cannot scale to meet what is coming, and the implicit transition needed to meet that challenge.
Continue readingFiled under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | Tagged: AI automation economy, AI job displacement, American Equity Fund, debt-free money, deflation risk, Elon Musk UHI proposal, Greenbacks history, monetary reform, national debt crisis, Sam Altman proposal, sovereign wealth fund, Treasury-issued currency, Universal basic income | 5 Comments »
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The AI Revolution: Where Capitalism Meets Socialism: The Abundance Paradigm, Part 2
Part 1 of this “Abundance Paradigm” series discussed predictions that artificial intelligence and robotics will in the relatively near future produce an economy of extraordinary abundance – one in which most labor is automated. The contention of Elon Musk is that this development will require some form of government-issued “Universal High Income” (UHI) to provide the consumer demand necessary to keep the economy functioning in a world where machines do most of the work.
Based on those projections, I argued that if a UHI were to become necessary, it could not realistically be financed through taxes or debt alone, but would require some form of debt-free sovereign money issuance — a modern version of Lincoln’s Greenbacks. The usual objection to government-issued money is that it would drive up prices and devalue the currency due to “too much money chasing too few goods.” But in this case, we would have too many goods and not enough money to provide the consumer demand to move them off the shelves. A source of abundant new money would actually be needed to keep trade flowing.
Objections came thick and fast. Some critics saw the AI revolution not as liberation but as a technocratic nightmare: AI surveillance, programmable digital money and “smart cities,” centralized control systems, and a future in which most people will own nothing while a tiny elite owns the machines, the data, and even the government. Others challenged the underlying premises: Would AI really generate such extraordinary abundance? Would productivity rise enough to justify something like a UHI? Or is this simply another round of Silicon Valley hype detached from economic reality?
Those are legitimate questions that deserve serious consideration, serious enough to require more than one sequel to address them. But whether or not we approve of Elon Musk, Sam Altman, or the AI industry itself, the AI revolution is already underway, driven by forces far larger than any individual actor. Businesses want AI because it lowers costs and increases productivity. Governments want it because they view it as strategically essential. Consumers increasingly rely on it because it saves time and improves convenience. The genie is out of the bottle.
Continue reading →Filed under: Ellen Brown Articles/Commentary | Tagged: AI driven energy systems, AI energy consumption, AI replacing workers, AI revolution, automation and jobs, capitalism vs socialism, China AI policy, China UBI debate, data center water use, NATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE BANK, primary water drilling, Universal basic income | 4 Comments »