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Tech CEOs suggest AI job losses could be offset by UBI which they will violently oppose
(www.thebeaverton.com)
this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2025
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I mean, I think assuming AI replaces enough jobs to cause unrest, tech and billionaires may end up supporting UBI. But they would do so while also demanding low taxes and receiving that, since they can afford to lobby for it.
In that case, UBI would be mostly derived from workers' salaries' and similar regressive tax revenues. Which is exactly why billionaires would be fine with it.
I'm sure their version of UBI will include a clause for recipients to be on birth control. Eventually unrest will be at manageable population levels without the need for it.
And many people will accept it because "if you can't afford to have children, you shouldn't".
That will start an internal war with the "trad wife" billionaires
Pretty sure that's codeword for "Chist"ian Harem, they won't care about the poors if they get theirs.
Realistically they will all look the other way until it becomes financially inconvenient.
Nitpick: that would be a BI, not a UBI.
Nope. They don't need to. Billionaires can afford to pay some paramilitary groups to defend them, and kill everyone else. Easy.
I think billionaires have thought through the scenario where there are millions of starving, desperate people and law alone can't protect them. I would imagine they prepare for it like the survivors in a zombie movie, living holed up in a compound, with similar chances of using force-based defense alone. Their defense only needs to fail once to be catastrophic (for them).
I can imagine a regressive taxed UBI that doesn't financially impact them is a very appealing alternative to that.
They can have multiple layers of defense.
Much near-future science fiction has the lowest of us depending on a form of UBI. It's a more efficient use of welfare benefits. As you said, it won't be what people envision.