Jargon:Universal High Income
1 min read
Say this at the party
“The idea that once AI and robots do most of the work, everyone gets paid more than enough to live well, not just the bare minimum.”
In plain English
You may have heard of universal basic income: everyone gets a regular payment to cover the basics, no strings attached. Universal high income goes further. The argument is that AI will make goods and services so cheap and plentiful that everyone could live comfortably, whether or not they work.
Nobody has said how it would be paid for or run. For now it's a prediction, not a policy.
Where it came from
Elon Musk made the phrase famous at VivaTech in Paris in May 2024, saying that in a good outcome "probably none of us will have a job" and there would be universal high income, "not universal basic income". He has repeated it since.
See it in action
The closest real-world test is of basic income. A three-year US study run by OpenResearch gave 1,000 people $1,000 a month. They worked one to two hours a week less, spent more time on leisure, and felt happier in the first year, but that faded.
What people get wrong
- It isn't a real policy anywhere. No government has a plan for it.
- It isn't the same as universal basic income. Basic income covers the essentials. High income promises plenty, which is a much bigger claim.
Go deeper
- ArticleCNN Business, 2024Elon Musk says AI will take all our jobsThe VivaTech talk where Musk coined the phrase.
- ArticleSam Altman, 2021Moore's Law for EverythingAn earlier, more detailed plan: share AI wealth through a fund that pays everyone.
- PaperVivalt et al. (NBER), 2024The Employment Effects of a Guaranteed Income: Experimental Evidence from Two U.S. StatesWhat actually happened when people got $1,000 a month for three years.
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Drafted with AI, checked by the AI Council (Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini) and signed off by Phin.