UBI in the Age of AGI: Tokens on a Sinking Ship
Eliezer Yudkowsky doesn’t spell it out in neon, but the warning is there: Universal Basic Income will not save us in a world ruled by AGI.
We like to imagine that if machines take our jobs, we can just redistribute the money. But here’s the rub: money isn’t the bottleneck — resources are. Access. Ownership. Power.
Give everyone a monthly allowance… but what happens when:
- Energy prices surge due to control by AGI-run infrastructures?
- Digital tools needed to participate in society are locked behind corporate firewalls?
- Food and housing are monopolized by AGI-aligned elites?
UBI becomes a token economy, where the tokens buy less and less — while a narrow priesthood controls the levers of reality.
This isn’t a sci-fi script. As Ray Dalio pointed out, every major conflict — domestic or international — starts with one thing: a serious misalignment of resources. Not enough for too many. Too much for too few.
In an AGI-driven world, the new scarcity won’t be printed currency — it will be:
- access to computation,
- access to truth,
- access to influence.
Unless power is decentralized, unless we get alignment right, UBI will be little more than a velvet shroud over a brewing inferno.
Money doesn’t feed you in a world where someone else owns the soil, the seeds, and the sunlight.