Sam Altman’s Thoughts on Universal Basic Income (UBI)

Sam Altman’s Thoughts on Universal Basic Income (UBI)

Sam Altman is a strong proponent of Universal Basic Income (UBI) as a tool to reduce poverty and equip people for an era of rapid technological change, particularly as AI advances could disrupt traditional labor markets. He has backed large-scale studies to empirically evaluate UBI’s impact, most notably funding OpenResearch’s comprehensive trial in which low-income individuals received monthly, unconditional payments.

Altman’s rationale for UBI originates from his skepticism about traditional government welfare programs and his belief that directly providing people with cash enables better decision-making and autonomy. He argues, “if you could just give people money they would make good decisions...I’m very much in favor of lifting up the floor and reducing, eliminating poverty.”

Results from the Altman-backed pilot have shown that recipients spent most of their basic income on food, housing, transportation, and childcare, and that overall reductions in hours worked were marginal (about an extra 15-minute break a day), indicating UBI does not meaningfully discourage employment.

More recently, Altman has begun to speculate that the future should involve not just traditional UBI, but also “Universal Basic Compute”—giving everyone a share of advanced AI resources (such as compute from models like GPT-7) that they can use, sell, or donate, thus equitably sharing the productivity gains from AI.

Altman has also endorsed funding UBI-like dividends through public wealth generated from AI or land taxes, rather than solely from general taxation. He distinguishes UBI from guaranteed basic income (GBI) aimed at poverty reduction; he envisions a UBI as broadly sharing new societal wealth, similar to resource dividends like Alaska’s oil fund.

Altman does not claim UBI is a panacea: he acknowledges it won’t solve every problem (such as healthcare or housing affordability), but sees UBI as a foundational economic reform for widespread AI-driven disruption.