Altman, the head of OpenAI and co-creator of ChatGPT, has also previously launched an obscure device called Worldcoin: a metallic sphere that users can stare into and transact with, especially with cryptocurrency, and use it as an identification terminal. As noted in a WinePress report last year, Altman has said he believes Worldcoin could be used to eventually facilitate UBI. He wrote in a post on the Worldcoin website:
“Worldcoin’s global decentralized identity and financial network could drastically increase economic opportunity, scale a reliable and privacy-preserving way to distinguish humans from AI online, enable global democratic processes and eventually show a potential path for AI-funded universal basic income (UBI).”
Worldcoin’s co-founder Alex Blania also explained how the devices could be used to prove an individual’s digital IDs.
“In the age of AI, the need for proof of personhood is no longer a topic of serious debate; instead, the critical question is whether or not the proof of personhood solutions we have can be privacy-first, decentralized and maximally inclusive,” he said.
He added: “Through its unique technology, Worldcoin aims to provide anyone in the world, regardless of background, geography or income, access to the growing digital and global economy in a privacy preserving and decentralized way.”
These are just some of the concepts some big tech giants have posited as a means introducing UBI. Business Insider recently detailed how big tech investors are looking to leverage AI to bring UBI to the world. The outlet reported (excerpts):
Matthew Johnson, a professor of public policy at Northumbria University, told Business Insider there has always been a connection between tech and UBI.
“It’s been popular because they realize that the consequences of the technological developments that they pursue are that lots of people are going to be put out of stable work,” he said. “There’s clearly a business incentive to remove those employees and replace them with technology that doesn’t cost them salaries.”
Figures such as Musk have backed the concept since at least 2016.
In an interview at the VivaTech conference in Paris in May, he said the “benign scenario” of AI development would leave everyone jobless — but with “universal high income.”
These fears are echoed by some of the tech’s earliest founders, who are sometimes called the “AI godfathers.” One figure, Geoffrey Hinton, recently told BBC Newsnight that governments will need to offer basic incomes to deal with the impact of AI on inequality.
Sam Altman, who runs one of the leading companies in the race toward AGI, has also long supported UBI. Recently, the OpenAI CEO also floated the idea of what he calls “universal basic compute.”
Johnson said tech leaders were essentially trying to fix the real-world consequences of technological development that they’re invested in. He added the UBI push is partly down to “concern about the wider social consequences of their activities” and fears that their companies won’t survive if society faces widespread unemployment.
Scott Santens, a key advocate for universal basic income, told BI he first became interested in the concept through a tech angle.
While studying the future of work and the impact of technology on the labor market, Santens became interested in finding a way to make technology benefit everyone.
“My question was, what is the realistic way of making technology work for all of us, instead of leading to this dystopian future where there’s a small percentage of rich people and many poor people? That thought got me interested in basic income,” he said. “We’ve already been impacted by automation, at least since the 1970s,” Santens said. “When computerization took off, wages did not increase in the same way productivity did.”
For prominent tech figures, there’s also a PR dimension to supporting the basic income concept, he said. “It’s outright lying to say tech won’t impact employment at all,” Santens said, meaning leaders need to suggest solutions to balance potential diminishing demand for human labor.
Altman, for example, has been pouring funds into basic income research. He raised $60 million for one of the largest trials of the systems, including $14 million of his own money.
The experiment gave low-income participants $1,000 a month for three years, no strings attached. The research found that recipients put the bulk of their extra spending toward basic needs such as rent, transportation, and food. They also worked less on average but remained engaged in the workforce and were more deliberate in their job searches compared with a control group.
Altman has floated the idea of sharing the computing capacity of large language models as another form of basic income.
“Everybody gets like a slice of GPT-7’s compute,” he told the “All-In” podcast in May. “They can use it, they can resell it, they can donate it to somebody to use for cancer research.”
The idea is that as AI becomes more advanced and embedded into more facets of our lives, owning a unit of future large language models could be more valuable than money.
Anna Yelizarova, a project lead at the Future of Life Institute, said tech companies have discussed sharing access to the AI models themselves.
“A lot of the conversation has been more around access to compute or access to the models themselves, which is a great start,” she said. “But if we really do get AI technology that can replace intellectual human labor at scale, we’re going to have to think of new approaches to ensure that economic gains are really evenly distributed.”
AUTHOR COMMENTARY
These types love to put out this fake persona that they are ‘noble’ and ‘charitable’ and helping society; but as we know this is just even greater enslavement. It’s sick. These losers create these problems (and maybe were contracted to do so) to satiate their materialism and desires to play God, and then after it totally disrupts and corrupts society then they come in and play superhero and provide their ready-made solution. It’s like a doctor or an evil parent who makes the patient or their child sick on purpose, and then provides “help” after.
Proverbs 28:3 A poor man that oppresseth the poor is like a sweeping rain which leaveth no food.
The Covid lockdowns were the trial run for UBI; stimulus programs and “non-essential” work protocols were designed to condition the masses and create a much greater dependency on the system.
The masses will need to undergo much greater shock treatment in order for them to accept this new system, a completely digital, tokenized, CBDC system that is not very far off.
SEE: SWIFT Banking System To Launch CBDC And Tokenized Platform, Expected To Be Released By 2025 Or 2026
Federal Reserve Says Launch Of CBDC Is ‘Key Duty’ In Message To Congress
World Bank Explores Wholesale And Retail CBDC Interoperability And Faster Payment Systems
[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).
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