“With robotics and AI, this is really the path to abundance for everyone,” he said said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland earlier this month. “People always talk about solving global poverty, or basically, how do we make everyone have a very high standard of living? I think the only way to do it is with AI and robotics.”

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s build proposed universal basic incomeMusk has proposed a universal high incomeusually from the government, given unconditionally to individuals.

He said little about what this vision of universal income might look like, but as AI gains momentum in the workplace, other global leaders are beginning to see it as a compelling option to address how automation is disrupting the labor force.

UK minister for investment Lord Jason Stockwood spoke to Financial Times this week the government is weighing the introduction of a universal basic income as a way to support workers in industries where AI threatens to displace them. Stockwood, who was appointed to the House of Lords in September 2025, is a long-time tech investor and former CEO of insurance broker Simply Business.

“Undoubtedly we need to think carefully about how we soft land the industries that have disappeared, so a kind of UBI, a kind of lifelong learning mechanism as well as so that people can retrain,” he said.

More than that calling for the reskilling of workers displaced by AI, Stockwood previously floated the idea of ​​tech companies being taxed to fund a universal basic income payment.

“I think about the gains in productivity and the wealth that AI can create, but we also have to think about the more destructive and imminent danger that it only puts inequality and makes a small group of super-rich elites even richer because they control the capital and the technologies,” he explained.

AI changes at work

Predictions about the future of work in the emerging world of automation vary greatly. while Some CEOs see AI adding new jobsothers see a complete overhaul of work as we know it. In a blog post published this past week, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warned AI would have an “extraordinarily painful” impact on the labor market.

“AI is not a replacement for specific human jobs but a general replacement for working for humans,” he wrote.

A lot of headcount reduction is already happening in the tech world. Amazon confirmed on Wednesday 16,000 corporate jobs cutgathered a further 14,000 layoffs in October 2025, although the company has previously said that the reductions are not about AI. Morgan Stanley a report earlier this week noted that AI-related job cuts Britain was hit the hardestwith 8% net unemployment in the last 12 months.

Can universal basic income work?

Universal basic income is unheard of, and 163 programs The social service pilot, including 41 active programs, is being run in the US alone, according to the Stanford Basic Income Lab. Altman, with his own curiosities about the efficacy of payments, was helpful finance the series of experiments of basic universal income from his OpenResearch project, starting in 2020.

The results of these pilots suggest that providing individuals, often low-income, with a series of steady payments results in greater spending on basic needs and spending on others, with participants continuing to hold jobs.

Ioana Marinescu, an economist and associate professor of public policy at the University of Pennsylvania, said that a universal basic income could be a pragmatic solution to solving AI job displacement, especially given the uncertainties of how many will lose their jobs due to AI, and how long they will be out of work.

For many who are currently unemployed, they rely on unemployment insurance benefits, which depend on an individual’s previous employment track record, he said. For people who have been unemployed for a long time or lack a long list of previous jobs—especially Gen Z, who may especially vulnerable in their jobs automatically—those benefits are not guaranteed. Therefore, having an unconditional series of payments from the universal basic income will be an effective safety net for unemployed individuals, Marinescu said. luck.

A positive impact on the taxation of technology companies and other businesses benefiting from AI that this will slow the adoption of AI in the workplace, according to Marinescu. That should also reduce the likelihood of more layoffs or transfers, giving workers the chance to find jobs elsewhere.

But there are risks involved in launching a universal basic income policy, too, Marinescu suggests. Given these payments, lower-income people are less likely to increase spending than higher-income people, because many are saddled with debt or other poverty traps. Plus, as tech billionaires get richer, chances are they’re less interested in parting with theirs balloon treasure—even perhaps universal basic income advocates like Altman and Musk.

“Actually, I’m worried that the people who benefit from AI, after the fact, will say, ‘Well, why do we have to pay for all the problems of people?'” Marinescu said. “But for now, we don’t know who will win, who will lose.”