# Rewriting the social contract in the age of thinking machines: universal basic income in the AI storm Author: Fernando Nieto Lobato Original publication: 2025-04-02 Spanish original: https://estrategiabyaleph.substack.com/p/estrategia-79-inteligencia-artificial English URL: https://elcontemplador.github.io/estrategia-english/essays/079/ Status: Published translation This is a translation of the original Spanish essay published on 2 April 2025. Its claims, examples and forecasts retain that historical context. English publication: 2026-09-29 ## Introduction: why this important article matters In recent weeks, we have seen **numerous statements by prominent figures and experts** drawing direct attention to something that those of us who follow AI closely already know, but that we believe most of the population knows almost nothing about: **the disruptive potential of the artificial intelligence revolution** we are living through. To give a few examples: **[Bill Gates said on The Tonight Show that, within ten years, AI would provide everyone with top-level medical advice and personalised education for free, and that the other side of this “free intelligence” would be that AI could take over most jobs](https://www.xatakandroid.com/mercado/sorprendente-prediccion-bill-gates-ia-mundo-laboral-no-haran-falta-humanos-para-mayoria-trabajos)**. A few days earlier, **[Dario Amodei, Anthropic's CEO, said that AI could write all programming code within a year](https://felloai.com/2025/03/anthropic-ceo-dario-amodei-ai-will-replace-90-of-developers-in-6-months/)**. **Javi López**, one of Spain's leading AI entrepreneurs, reflected on X, as ChatGPT's new image-generation system arrived, that [“we are heading towards a world in which we will be able to create anything using nothing more than natural language and gestures”](https://x.com/javilop/status/1905203494530789861). On the occasion of that same release, AI communicator **Jon Hernández**, [whose interview with José María Lassalle discussing these issues we recommended a few issues ago](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSFFbRQnbtY), made this blunt statement on X: [“Joking aside, making Totoro-style pictures is cool and all, but today a whole load of companies have been wrecked and another profession has been put at risk of extinction. Let that sink in, and maybe we'll fucking wake up at last and realise what's coming.”](https://x.com/JonhernandezIA/status/1905040246448042043) *Translation note: quotations in this introduction are translated from the Spanish wording reproduced in the original article. No original English wording or recordings have been independently verified for this edition.* **These are just four recent examples, but there are many more. In truth, major AI companies and laboratories have been warning us for years about this technology's transformative power.** Everything seems to suggest that, in less than a decade, we will be living in a rather different world, one in which work as we know it could be a very different reality for most people. **In this context, one of the main tools considered for addressing the socioeconomic earthquake is the introduction of universal basic income**, although, as you will see, the idea is centuries old. **We think the concept is far less widely understood than it deserves to be, given the revolution ahead**. It is crucial to begin discussing this solution and how to implement it—or how to devise alternatives, because changing nothing will not do. We have therefore devoted this article to **an initial introduction**, [with help from all the deep-research tools we recommended in issue 75](https://estrategiabyaleph.substack.com/p/estrategia-75-como-usar-la-ia-para): **what universal basic income is, why it might be badly needed with the arrival of artificial general intelligence (AGI), and some key ideas about its meaning and implementation. Crucially**, beyond recognising the intrinsic dignity of human beings in its own right, **this would be a world in which it is not that people do not want to work: there may very well be no work for the majority**. ## Universal basic income: a key option as artificial general intelligence approaches Progress in artificial intelligence is no longer measured in decades but in months. From algorithms that optimise logistics to language models that write code or poetry, **AI is reshaping entire industries**. Yet **the horizon holds an even more profound transformation: the arrival of artificial general intelligence, systems with cognitive capabilities comparable to, or even greater than, those of humans across a broad range of tasks. This prospect, together with the hypothetical superintelligence that would follow shortly afterwards, raises fundamental questions about the very structure of our economies and societies, particularly the future of work**. Faced with the increasingly real possibility of automation on a massive scale, an idea once relegated to the margins of political debate—universal basic income, or UBI—emerges as a proposal demanding urgent, pragmatic consideration. ## What is universal basic income? In essence, universal basic income is **a regular, individual, unconditional cash payment made by the state to all its citizens or residents**. Its universality and unconditionality distinguish it sharply from traditional benefits, which tend to be selective and temporary, and require something in return, such as actively seeking employment or demonstrating need. UBI, by contrast, **is conceived as a citizen's right: a guaranteed economic floor that would simplify the welfare state's complex architecture, reduce bureaucracy and eliminate the stigma associated with receiving assistance**. [![Original GPT-4o-generated four-panel infographic on universal basic income: income for everyone, no conditions, a response to AGI and economic security; complete English text and the source's truncated word are explained below.](https://elcontemplador.github.io/estrategia-english/assets/images/45091652-af97-4e35-bd50-b27c1d0d12bb_1024x1536.png)](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!ryjM!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F45091652-af97-4e35-bd50-b27c1d0d12bb_1024x1536.png) *Graphic created with GPT-4o's new image model using simply this prompt: “Could you make a four-panel infographic about universal basic income in the era of the arrival of artificial general intelligence, please?”* *Full English rendering of the four panels, headed “Universal basic income”:* - **Income for everyone:** the state provides unconditional income to the entire population. The original graphic truncates the Spanish adjective “unconditional”; its intended meaning is also explicit in the article's definition above. - **No conditions:** the payment is not subject to requirements such as looking for work. - **A response to AGI:** introducing basic income may become relevant with the arrival of artificial general intelligence. - **Economic security:** the aim is to reduce poverty and provide economic stability. **The idea is not new**. Its intellectual roots are surprisingly diverse. To mention just a few figures, **Thomas Paine** was already advocating a “citizen's dividend” in the eighteenth century as compensation for the privatisation of land. In the twentieth century, figures as different as civil rights leader **Martin Luther King Jr.**, who saw it as a direct tool for abolishing poverty, and liberal economist **Milton Friedman**, who championed a “negative income tax” as an efficient alternative to welfare bureaucracy, supported similar concepts. More recently, philosophers such as **Philippe Van Parijs** have articulated UBI in terms of “real freedom”, arguing that material security is a prerequisite for everyone to be genuinely able to exercise their choices in life. Beyond theory, **numerous [limited-scale basic-income “experiments”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_basic_income_pilots) have taken place in recent years**, in Finland, Ontario, India, Germany and elsewhere. **But we must understand that the context will be very different**. One fear among the political proponents of these prototypes was that UBI might discourage work and thereby have negative effects. Here, however, we may very well find ourselves **in a scenario in which much of the population will not be “able” to work**, at least under conditions similar to today's. That changes the perspective completely and removes that “fear”. **Bearing this enormous difference in mind**, what those studies broadly showed was that UBI reduces extreme poverty and financial stress without producing a mass withdrawal from employment. **Its positive effects are seen above all in security, mental health and the ability to start businesses or acquire skills**. Questions remain, however, about how to fund an adequate UBI at scale and whether it might have inflationary effects. ## The age of artificial intelligence: why is universal basic income returning to the forefront? If UBI has been a recurring theme in the history of thought across many traditions and perspectives over recent centuries, and quite a few pilots have been conducted, why has it gained so much traction recently? **The answer**, obvious if you have read this article's introduction, **lies in AI's exponential acceleration**. Unlike previous technological waves, **today's AI automates not only routine or manual tasks but also cognitive and creative ones. Moreover, it is a technology that will soon be able to “improve itself”: we will have AI models training better models, which will in turn train the next generation, accelerating development still further**. [Reports by consultancies such as McKinsey project **hundreds of millions of job displacements worldwide by 2030**](https://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/our-research/generative-ai-and-the-future-of-work-in-america), while [Accenture estimates that models such as ChatGPT could affect up to 40% of working hours](https://es.weforum.org/stories/2023/05/estos-son-los-trabajos-que-se-perderan-y-se-crearan-a-causa-de-la-ia/?utm_source=chatgpt.com). Both studies date from 2023—ancient in AI terms, when the pace accelerates every year. The prospect of AGI intensifies these concerns. If intelligent machines can perform most human tasks more efficiently and cheaply, the traditional model of employment as the main mechanism for distributing income begins to falter. **The risk is not only mass unemployment but also a dramatic exacerbation of inequality**, as José María Lassalle highlighted [in his book](https://open.substack.com/pub/estrategiabyaleph/p/estrategia-77-resena-de-civilizacion?r=2tyybn&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false) and [in his conversation with Jon Hernández](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSFFbRQnbtY). As economists such as Daron Acemoglu have pointed out, [automation tends to favour capital over labour, concentrating the wealth it generates in the hands of those who own the technology](https://economics.mit.edu/news/study-automation-drives-income-inequality?utm_source=chatgpt.com). Without corrective mechanisms, we could face a future of technological abundance coexisting with widespread insecurity. **In this scenario, UBI presents itself as a strategic tool for several interconnected reasons:** 1. **Economic and social stabilisation:** it would act as **an essential safety net for millions of displaced people, preventing mass poverty and sustaining the aggregate demand necessary to keep the increasingly automated economy functioning**. **Without consumption, our entire capitalist economy collapses: if people have no money, they cannot consume. Giving them purchasing power, even if limited at first, is therefore key to maintaining the system as we know it**. This would happen while prices fell through technological improvements and reduced labour input, and while the amount received as UBI could progressively rise as more wealth was generated globally. How this would work in a post-scarcity economy, in a later phase, is another question for a somewhat more distant future. 2. **Redistribution:** it **would channel a share of AI-generated productivity gains to the entire population**, acting as a “technological dividend” that recognises the collective nature of progress. **Technology-sector figures such as [Elon Musk](https://t100.com.mx/blog-elon-musk-dice-que-la-renta-basica-universal-sera-clave-en-la-era-de-la-ia/?utm_source=chatgpt.com) and Sam Altman, [who has even funded his own research on the subject](https://es-us.noticias.yahoo.com/%C2%BFfuncionaria-una-renta-basica-de-us1000-al-mes-para-todos-los-ciudadanos-en-eeuu-173649353.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com), have publicly supported UBI on this basis.** 3. **Facilitating the transition:** it **would ease individuals' economic pressures, allowing them to invest in training, adapt to new roles or explore alternative forms of social contribution—care, art, volunteering—that the market does not always reward adequately**. The equally crucial question of **meaning in life**, in a context where we have tied our identity so closely to work and that work disappears or changes profoundly, **would undoubtedly warrant another article**. At least UBI would provide a minimum response to economic needs and allow more options for addressing these extremely important existential questions too. 4. **Strengthening labour bargaining power:** it would give workers greater power to reject precarious conditions, encouraging **an overall improvement in the quality of the jobs that remain**. People without the economic resources to survive are far more vulnerable to an unscrupulous employer threatening to replace them with AI or a robot unless they work twice the hours or accept a pay cut. UBI could thus make a significant contribution to safeguarding the dignity and working conditions of those who remain in employment. 5. **Intergenerational justice:** this is particularly relevant to young people. If AI leads firms to limit new hiring rather than dismiss existing staff, which is much more costly—a pattern we are already beginning to see among major technology companies that have sharply reduced their plans to hire programmers—new generations would face substantial barriers to entering the labour market. The proposed reductions in working time discussed in recent years could run into the same wall in an AGI context: hours are reduced and conditions protected and improved for those already employed, but AI fills the working time they leave vacant, rather than new workers, who become still more exposed. UBI would give young people an essential economic foundation and could provide the security some need to launch their own projects, encouraging entrepreneurship, or direct their lives towards socially valuable but unpaid activities. [![Napkin.ai diagram of five roles for universal basic income around economic and social stability; all labels and descriptions are translated below.](https://elcontemplador.github.io/estrategia-english/assets/images/9f37ce96-b8ae-41d4-9b3b-916e0ac644b8_1455x1600.png)](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!txrQ!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9f37ce96-b8ae-41d4-9b3b-916e0ac644b8_1455x1600.png) *Graphic created automatically from the text with Napkin.ai.* *Full translation of “The role of universal basic income in an AI-driven economy”. At the centre: “Economic and social stability”. The five surrounding roles are:* - **Economic stabiliser:** keeps the economy—and consumption—functioning by preventing poverty. - **Wealth redistribution:** channels AI's enormous productivity gains to the population. - **Facilitating the transition in work and personal life:** enables training, retraining and a shift into unpaid roles. - **Bargaining power:** improves working conditions by empowering the workers who remain. - **Intergenerational justice:** provides a foundation for young people who would struggle to enter the labour market. ## The crucial question of funding The million-dollar question remains how to fund a meaningful universal basic income capable of addressing the social change that AGI's arrival could bring. Proposals range from traditional tax reforms—progressive increases in personal income tax, VAT and corporation tax—to more innovative ideas adapted to the emerging digital economy: - **Taxes on capital and wealth:** taxing capital income and large fortunes more heavily, as their concentration is expected to increase with AI. - **A “robot tax”:** taxing the use of robots or algorithms that replace human jobs, [as Bill Gates suggested many years ago](https://www.weforum.org/stories/2017/02/bill-gates-this-is-why-we-should-tax-robots/?utm_source=chatgpt.com), and [Bernie Sanders supported more recently](https://fortune.com/2023/02/21/bernie-sanders-bill-gates-robot-tax-automation-job-threat/). - **Technological dividends:** requiring major technology companies to contribute a share of their profits or equity to a public fund financing UBI, [as proposed by Yanis Varoufakis](https://www.project-syndicate.org/magazine/a-tax-on-robots-by-yanis-varoufakis-2024-03?utm_source=chatgpt.com). - **Taxes on personal data or digital services:** capturing some of the value generated by the data economy, which uses our personal data to create wealth on major platforms. **Although the challenge is monumental, AI itself could generate the additional wealth required by dramatically increasing productivity. The key will lie in the political will to design tax systems that effectively capture and redistribute that wealth without destroying innovation and growth.** ## Challenging myths about UBI amid mass AI adoption: beyond left and right, towards freedom and entrepreneurship Interestingly, **UBI attracts support from opposing ideological directions**. While **the left sees it as an instrument of social justice and equality**, **some liberals and conservatives defend it in the name of individual freedom and efficiency**. They argue that **giving people money directly empowers them to make their own decisions, reduces the welfare state's paternalistic bureaucracy and eliminates “poverty traps”**. The analogy with a school voucher is relevant: individuals are trusted to manage their resources and make decisions, rather than becoming completely dependent on the state. Far from encouraging laziness, UBI could also **catalyse entrepreneurship**. **By providing a basic safety net, it would reduce the financial risk of starting a business, democratising the opportunity to innovate**. Evidence from several UBI pilots, [such as the one conducted in India](https://mondediplo.com/2013/05/04income), showing an increase in small businesses, supports this hypothesis. In a world where traditional work will be scarce, encouraging individual initiative will be crucial. Some exceptional individuals or small groups, making the most of AI's power, will undoubtedly be able to develop projects of great economic and social value to humanity. Finally, UBI opens the door to deep reflection on the meaning of work. In societies where, unfortunately, [a high proportion of people report dissatisfaction with their jobs](https://www.equiposytalento.com/noticias/2025/01/23/solo-el-287-de-los-trabajadores-en-espana-estan-satisfechos-con-su-trabajo), guaranteeing subsistence could **free many individuals from the “biblical curse” of labour, allowing them to pursue activities more closely aligned with their vocations and values, redefine social contribution beyond paid employment, and recover the notion that individuals have value simply by existing, not solely through their ability to produce wealth**. That notion is deeply rooted in many ancient philosophical traditions, including, close to home, the humanism of Christian and classical origin that underpins European and Western values. ## Conclusion: preparing for the storm before the downpour begins **Universal basic income is no magic solution, nor is it free of challenges. Implementing it requires careful design, sustainable funding and cultural adaptation. Legitimate doubts remain about its long-term effects on inflation and broader economic dynamics.** Nevertheless, given the scale of the disruption promised by AGI and the absence, for now, of clear alternatives from politics and governments—which we hope will also begin to be discussed and developed—UBI emerges as one of the most relevant and potentially necessary policy tools for navigating the transition. Its complexity means it cannot be deployed optimally from one year to the next, and would involve reshaping or abolishing most existing benefits. Yet **we probably do not have much time** before we begin to see enormous disruption from AI in employment: first in “intellectual” work, then years later in other fields as AI-controlled robots advance. UBI **offers a pragmatic way to address the risks of mass unemployment, extreme inequality and social unrest simultaneously, while strengthening individual freedom and adaptability**. **Ignoring UBI or dismissing it outright as an impossible utopia would be imprudent**. Governments, international institutions and civil society must intensify research, experimentation and informed debate about its different forms and funding mechanisms, and do so soon. It goes without saying that, as a relatively simple mechanism to understand—a universal payment to each individual—**UBI could readily win electoral support at a time of considerable labour-market tension**. Even so, **actually implementing it would require cross-party political alliances** and substantial tax reform, as well as rethinking other issues that will also be profoundly shaken by the transformation brought by the AI revolution, such as pensions, unemployment and training. **Beginning to develop frameworks for a possible universal basic income**, alongside studying other possible alternatives, **is not a concession to laziness but strategic preparation for a future in which the relationship between humans, technology and work will very probably change irreversibly. The AGI storm is approaching, and UBI could be the anchor that allows us to weather it and build a fairer, more resilient society in a new age of intelligent machines.** Fernando Nieto Lobato *Director of Digital Innovation at the ALEPH Educational Institution*