Sam Altmans UBI Study Is DONE! The Data is In...

So Sam Altman is of course among several tech leaders like Elon Musk, Jack Dorsey, who have been proponents of UBI as a potential antidote to the negative effects of technology automating people's occupations. Now we actually do have a statement from Sam Altman in 2016 and he wrote something that still echoes true today. He said, I'm fairly confident that at some point in the future, as new technology continues to eliminate traditional jobs and massive new wealth gets created, we're going to see some version of this at a national scale. So essentially what he's stating there is that yes, while these initial experiments with maybe just 100 people or 1,000 people in these small select environments, we're most likely going to have to see some level of this in the future as technology continues to automate away traditional role. Now we do actually have the data from the study from OpenREX Research and the Open Research pilot actually began in 2020 when a thousand low income participants from rural, suburban and urban areas in Illinois and Texas started receiving $1,000 a month. Two thousand others also received $50 a month to participate in the study as a control group. And every beneficiary was at or under 300% of the federal poverty line. But on average there was their household incomes were under $29,000. So essentially what we can see here is the fact that we have a study that was conducted with just 1,000 people. But what most people don't understand about this study is that this study was actually one of the longest UBI studies conducted. I think it actually is the longest UBI study conducted, which is important for the research because what people actually want to do is, is they actually want to realize exactly how in the future, once automation is here, once many roles do disappear, what humans are actually going to do and what the kind of effects are of giving people unconditional payments. Now traditionally some of the things that most people did actually realize were the things like reduced stress levels and increasing levels of your savings. And I think some of the results here are also pretty interesting, but they also actually show us exactly what we suspected. So essentially the researchers first set of results are based on three years of payments. And they found that participants use the funds to buy essentials like food, rent and transportation and not vices. The reason I've highlighted that part is because one of the things that some people who are anti UBI essentially just state, and this is really incorrectly, they state that many people who actually are going to be receiving those payments are actually just going to spend them on drugs and other things that they don't need. Now, of course, this is completely false. This is something that just isn't true. But this is something that people have said. And I think time and time again, what we're seeing from these studies is that the data shows us that when people are in positions where they don't have enough money, as soon as they start to get some universal basic income, they do not spend that money. Reckless. That is something that most people do need to take into account when thinking about this. And of course, this is good for the space because it means that in the future, governments are more likely to be proponents of this policy because it shows that it has been effective. Now, some other things that they spoke about was that this study actually showed that recipients spent more on housing, food and car expenses, but they worked slightly less. Now, labor participation did decline by 2%, equating to about 8 fewer workers annually. And I know that some people did think that, okay, some people did stop working. But there was actually also this by Vox News where they actually spoke about how. Look, the data can sometimes be confusing and sometimes it might not make sense, but that doesn't mean that the data is false. So what we have here is you can see that it says that while one person might wind up finding better work and taking on more hours thanks to the cash, while another person might scale back their hours to spend more time with their kids, both cases can be good outcomes to the individuals involved. But as an average treatment effect where one person worked a lot more, another person worked a lot less, it kind of all averages out. That's why while some people just look at it and think, you know, all these people are going to become lazy and dependent on that, that's often usually not what we see from these studies. And time and time again, this is what the data is showing. Now, one of the interesting things that I actually did see from was from this Vox article where they actually spoke about how that we should insulate the case for basic income from any potential AI bubbles. And I think this is an interesting concept because it dives into the topic of wider society without automation. And it kind of, you know, I wouldn't say it's an attack on capitalism, but it kind of poses the question that basically is, you know, is capitalism too extreme, considering the fact that we now have technology which has sort of put capitalism in sort of this hyperdrive reality where you've got people that are extremely rich with billions and billions of dollars, and you've got people that literally don't have any money at all. So you can see right here it says, despite receiving funding from much of the tech world, where the talk of AI is everywhere, none of the papers published from the unconditional income study mentioned AI at all. And that's a good thing because as I mentioned earlier, we should insulate the case for basic income or from the volatility and the unknowns of AI. Basically what I think they're saying here is that look, AI is a technology that yes, it might automate people away, but I think that we should have basic income. Anyways. That's basically what the article is saying because it's stating that, look, we shouldn't wait for AI to be something that automates everyone before we start to realize that, look, maybe, just maybe, we might need some kind of basic income to help those who are on the poverty line. Which I think is a rather interesting comment and I'd love to know your thoughts down below. And you can see here that this article, you know, dives into some increasingly worrying things. Of course, Altman wrote in 2021 that if public policy doesn't adapt accordingly, most people will end up worse off than they are today. This is something that he wrote in 2021. It's going to be part of a longer video that I talk about. But this is, you know, quite true. If most people, as they are now, you know, most people are going to be worse off because they there's gonna be less demand for certain jobs and there's gonna be more AI in the world which could potentially take those jobs. Whilst yes, that doesn't cover the entire economic landscape and how the economy works. That is just the basis of it. And of course it says here for years Altman has been publicly worrying about that basic income will become necessary as AI eliminates traditional jobs while creating huge stockpiles of cash held by the few. Now, of course it says here Altman is not alone. Many major figures in the tech world, from Elon Musk to the godfather of AI to the godfather of AI JE Hinton, believe that AI will usher a wave of technological unemployment, which is quite terrifying to say the least, and that basic income will be necessary to keep us all afloat. And the article finishes by stating that, you know, that this person is quite conflicted and I think this one right here is a really important point. They say that, but hitching the case for basic income to the fears of rapid AI progress makes it far more vulnerable than it needs to be. If there's no great wave of AI driven unemployment and if the bubble of AI actually bursts and turned out to be hardly different than any other cycle of innovation and technological unemployment in the past, the support for basic income would fall too. The basic saying that, look, if AI turns out to be this hype bubble that it might be, then it looks like we're not truly going to get the support for basic income that you so desperately need. Now, I do think that this is a rather important thing to talk about because of course there does need to be support for this. But I do think that as technology becomes increasingly more capable, and there will certainly be some programs to help those who have been affected by AI. One of the things that I do wonder if it's going to become more popular is the fact that Germany actually has laws requiring companies to notify their works councils about AI and other new technologies that they're planning to adopt. Most German companies have work councils, which are worker management committees that discuss everything from vacation schedules to the pace of work and the effects of AI. It seems that certain societies and certain policies can affect how this transformative period is actively managed. Now, because there has been so many different AI tools released, and because there are so many different jobs that are going to be impacted by AI, I created this database of over currently 170 different jobs that are going to be impacted by AI. And I left a link to the actual tool that is going to impact that career. I created this for my post AGI economics community. I update this every single day, every time I see an actually effective tool that you can use in certain industries and there are just so many that I think this is something that could genuinely help you. So if you feel like this is something that you want to see and something that could help you out, don't forget to check this out by clicking the link below and joining the post AGI preparedness community. This is pretty useful because it allows you to see all of the different areas of the economy, jobs that are currently being affected by different AI tools. This isn't really speculative. I want it to be based on different tools that are actually affecting work today. So it's got the industry, it's got susceptibility to AI or all of the AI tools that actually affect it. And of course the notes and of course the link to the tools. And if you did enjoy today's video, hopefully you did find some value in this. And let me know your thoughts about UBI and the future to come and I'll see you guys in the next video. I.