[AI Hegemony War Korea's Winning Move] Musk and ChatGPT Creator Say... "The Era of Basic Income Is Coming"

Global CEOs Foreseeing the AI Revolution Era
Mention the Need for Universal Basic Income Introduction
Emerging as a Solution to Unemployment and Social Unrest
Criticism of 'Populism'... Securing Funding Remains a Challenge

"In the end, I believe we will have to implement a universal basic income. There is no other choice." (Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla)

As artificial intelligence (AI) technology advances day by day, discussions about basic income are becoming active again. Basic income refers to providing a fixed amount equally to everyone regardless of income or assets. Simply put, AI does the work, and people receive basic income instead of a salary. The logic of basic income proponents is that AI and robots will take human jobs, causing mass unemployment and income polarization, and governments will have no choice but to introduce basic income to operate the country normally.

CEO Musk spoke about universal basic income at the World Government Summit (WGS) held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2017, saying, "The number of tasks robots can do better than humans is increasing." He predicted, "The productivity of goods and services is extremely improving and will become even more abundant due to automation," adding, "Eventually, we will introduce basic income."

Furthermore, CEO Musk expressed concern about the end of labor, stating, "The bigger issue is how people will find meaning in life," and "If people are no longer needed for labor, where will they find meaning in life?"

Why Basic Income Now?

Concerns that AI will replace human jobs are growing. The World Economic Forum (WEF) predicted that 14 million jobs, equivalent to 2% of the global workforce, will disappear within the next five years. In fact, recently, global IT company IBM declared it would stop hiring for roles that can be replaced by AI, such as back-office support staff who do not interact with customers. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, unmanned automation technology has rapidly advanced, and with services like ChatGPT that think like humans emerging, the absolute number of jobs is decreasing.

If in the future human labor no longer becomes the source of income, there may come a day when the state must provide basic income to guarantee citizens' basic living. No matter how excellent products AI produces, without income to consume them, the economy cannot function properly.

Basic income is one way to alleviate economic inequality and enhance social stability. While it has positive effects such as reducing the wealth gap and resolving welfare blind spots, it also has negative effects like increased tax burdens and loss of work motivation.

In 2016, Switzerland put a proposal to include basic income provisions in its constitution to a referendum. The plan was to pay 2,500 Swiss francs per month (about 3 million KRW). Although it was rejected, it served as an opportunity to spread discussions about basic income.

ChatGPT Founder Also Experiments with Basic Income

Recently, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, who visited Korea, attracted attention by bringing up the topic of basic income. He said the labor market will rapidly change due to AI and mentioned basic income as a solution to global poverty issues.

Altman also recognized early on the importance of proper distribution in the AI revolution era. In 2018, when he was CEO of startup accelerator Y Combinator, he conducted an experiment in the U.S. providing basic income. At the time, he said it was "to see how people who lost jobs spend their time."

Since 2019, he has been working on the "Worldcoin" project, which provides basic income based on cryptocurrency. It uses iris scanning and blockchain technology to reward users who participate in collecting iris data with Worldcoin. It is a system that allows earning money not through labor but through biometric information, i.e., data.

We now live in an era where data is money. For example, if the value of a service increases due to consumer data from online portal activities like searches, consumers who did not specifically work can also be considered to have participated in the production process in a broad sense.

The problem is securing funding for basic income. Since it assumes the use of national budgets, if funding is not supported, the feasibility is low. For this reason, the European Union (EU) has discussed the so-called "robot tax." This proposes taxing companies that lose jobs due to robot adoption and using the revenue as funding for basic income.

Some view the massive funding required for basic income as populism or a "dream-like story." An expert from an economic organization said, "The development of AI can create new jobs and generate more employment," adding, "Humanity will make efforts to adapt to changes on its own power rather than relying on basic income to sustain a more advanced life."