Why universal basic income still can't meet the challenges of an AI economy

A person holds a fake $1,000 bill signed by former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang following a campaign event in Iowa City, Iowa, on 29 January 2020. A person holds a fake $1,000 bill signed by former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang following a campaign event in Iowa City, Iowa, on 29 January 2020. Why universal basic income still can't meet the challenges of an AI economy Andrew Yang's revived pitch suits the automation debate, but UBI can't fix inequalities concentrated tech wealth drives Universal basic income (UBI) is back, like a space zombie in a sci-fi movie, resurrected from policy oblivion, hungry for policymakers' attention: brains! Andrew Yang, whose "Yang Gang" enthusiasm briefly shook up the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020 promoting a "Freedom Dividend" to save workers from automation - $1,000 a month for every American adult - is again the main carrier of the bug: offering UBI to save the nation when robots eat all our jobs. This time Chat GPT, Yang hopes, will help his argument land: if artificial intelligence truly makes human labor redundant, as so many citizens of the tech bubble in Silicon Valley expect, society will need something other than employment for all of us to make ends meet.