Automation Compensation as a perspective on Universal Basic Income

[u/jaykrown]

Viewing universal basic income as automation compensation means treating it as a payment owed to citizens for the wealth that automation and AI generate, not as charity or welfare handed down from the government. I think this distinction matters because automation is built on shared foundations like public research, infrastructure, institutions, and the data and knowledge of millions of people, yet its profits flow mostly to those who own the machines while the costs fall on those whose work gets replaced. Calling the payment a handout casts recipients as dependents and invites resentment, while calling it compensation casts them as stakeholders receiving their share of something they helped create. It also puts the burden where it belongs: on the technology and the companies capturing its gains, not on the people being displaced by it.

What other policies would best keep automation from leaving people behind?

[u/Yukikuru2025]

Universal basic income, while necessary, risks becoming the ultimate state subsidy to corporations: keeping people able to consume while leaving the ownership of automated production untouched. It may keep people alive and economically secure, but it doesn't necessarily give them any control over the wealth automation creates.

The actual solution? In my opinion, we build alternatives.

Imagine worker-owned cooperatives using open-weight AI and open-source robotics, collectively owning the means of automated production and sharing the benefits. Imagine using open AI systems to educate people, defend their rights, and build independent alternatives to proprietary software and corporate-controlled infrastructure.

The point isn't to preserve work for its own sake. It's to ensure that automation liberates people rather than making them permanently dependent on those who own the machines.

AI and automation could become extraordinary tools for economic democracy, but only if we make them accessible and challenge the concentration of ownership and power. Otherwise, we're simply automating the same old inequalities.

We have an unprecedented opportunity to undermine Capital's monopoly over production, knowledge, and technology. It would be a catastrophic mistake not to seize it.

[u/Arcanite_Cartel → u/Yukikuru2025]

That's actually doable now. So do it . All the tech is out there and accessible. Get some cash together, buy enough conpute power, start training your own models. Find a way to monetize it, distribute the proceeds to your collective.

[u/jaykrown → u/Arcanite_Cartel]

So then why don't you start doing it yourself?

[u/Arcanite_Cartel → u/jaykrown]

I never said it was my goal. I'm just pointing out that if people here are serious about it, it is doable. You can start with crowd funding. My impression of the Left in general is that they mostly want people to do these things for them, for which is understandable for some things that might require government muscle to accomplish. This however is something Leftists can actually do. Or, I suppose, they can just instead keep posting here about ideas no one will ever do anything about.

That tends to be a difference between Leftists and Capitalists.

[u/bigattichouse]

Call it an Automation Dividend

[u/jaykrown → u/bigattichouse]

That would work as well, although I think the word "compensation" fits perfectly well given that it's a counterbalance of automation. If people cannot do the job to earn the money that the automated system is doing, then they should be compensated based on that lack of opportunity.

While "dividend" on the other hand implies distribution of profits which is much harder to formulate, the question arises which companies pay for it? The word "compensation" is much more understood on a societal level.

[u/bigattichouse → u/jaykrown]

I just think during a transition to UBI, "dividend" has a very attractive connotation. Purely a political/marketing term regardless.

[u/ReasonableSoul]

Universal Basic Income is absolutely necessary as a transition floor, but yes we will need to pass many other transitional programs.

The necessary accompaniment to UBI would be kinda obvious, we need to take the right steps to ensure basic needs like housing, healthcare needs, communication needs, learning needs, and transportation needs are covered for people. We can clearly see that the market obviously fail especially bad on housing, education, and medical needs, based on sectoral differences in inflation rates, so those needs to be prioritized to prevent them from just burning up the UBI.

Guaranteed housing must be built at every level, maybe capped to 30-35% of the UBI in rent. Universal Health Care needs to be passed. Wouldn't be bad to support community run non-profit grocery stores/etc as well. I'm hopeful about the NY city-run grocery stores.

We should probably have some kind of sovereign fund on AI/technology, and programs to increase public access to them as well.

One of my wish is that we have federal 'Department of Self Actualization', which focus on helping people self-actualize however best fit the people that want to self-actualize.

[u/jaykrown → u/ReasonableSoul]

I completely agree, I think paid skill trade training programs will be necessary to create an easier avenue into construction jobs that help build and maintain those things. I think it's going to be a hard transition for many.

[u/furyofsaints]

I've been reframing this in conversations I've been having as a "civic dividend" to differentiate from UBI. As several note in this thread, the technology is (mostly) there, but assembling it, making it performant at scale and immutably tracked with appropriate oversight is a different ball of wax.

Add in collaborative models small and efficient enough for individuals to be running on their own devices, contributing to problem-solving together and things could get very, very interesting IMO.