2026-10-29
AI & The New Social Contract | Does $1,000/Month Make People Lazy? Inside Sam Altman’s $60M, 3-Year OpenResearch UBI Experiment
UBI & AI Social Reconstruction Column · Episode 02. Whenever we call for Universal Basic Income (UBI) in the age of AI abundance, critics repeat a 400-year-old trope: 'Give people unconditional cash and everyone will stop working and waste it on vice.' To test that claim with hard science, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman backed OpenResearch—a $60 million, 3-year randomized controlled trial tracking 3,000 people across 36 months. Published by the NBER, the empirical results demolish every paternalistic myth.
