Will AI remove the obligation to work?
By Veronica Wade August 25, 2025, 8:59
Most UBI programs give money to adults in the form of recurring payments, regardless of how much they already have or their employment status. The amount tends to vary from $500 per month to $1,500.
For many people, that just isn’t enough to cover the bills should they lose their jobs – especially if they have no savings.
Miles Brundage, who was OpenAI’s senior policy advisor and head of the AGI readiness team until 2024, believes that the impact of ever-advancing AI will have on the economy will allow UBI payments to eventually reach $10,000 per month.
“I think that a significantly more generous UBI experiment than has been tried so far (say, $10k/month vs. $1k/month) would show big effects,” he wrote on X.
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“$1k/month is relevant to what’s feasible policy-wise today,” Brundage said. “$10k/month is relevant to what will be feasible policy-wise in a few years with AI-enabled growth.”
Altman’s experiment gave 1,000 people $1,000 per month, while a 2,000-person control group was given $50 per month.
While one of the concerns about UBI is that it will encourage people to not work, the findings from Altman’s tests showed that most recipients kept working and only increased their spending on basic needs, such as food, housing, and transportation.
Recipients were also more likely to visit a hospital, see a specialist, go to the dentist, and cut down on excess alcohol and drug use. They also reported lower stress and higher life satisfaction.
Interestingly, recipients were more selective when it came to choosing work: some chose lower-paid jobs for more independence or the opportunity to enter a certain industry. They were also more likely to start their own business.
Elon Musk once said that AI will replace all human jobs, and Bill Gates believes it will lead to workweeks consisting of just two or three days. When Brundage resigned from OpenAI, he said he worried a lot about the technology disrupting opportunities for people who desperately wanted work, but he did believe AI and AGI could eventually remove the obligation to work for a living. It sounds optimistically utopian, though we’re not ready for such a scenario just yet.
“That is not something we’re prepared for politically, culturally, or otherwise, and needs to be part of the policy conversation. A naive shift toward a post-work world risks civilizational stagnation (see: WALL-E), and much more thought and debate about this is needed,” Brundage wrote at the time.
