Sam Altman's basic income experiment finds that money can indeed buy happiness
- Reference: 1721753174
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/07/23/sam_altman_basic_income/
- Source link:
After three years of giving 1,000 low-income individuals $1,000 a month of no-strings-attached cash (and a 2,000-person control group $50 a month), a group of researchers at Altman's OpenResearch [1]determined that recipients [2]mostly spent the cash on life necessities, got a bit [3]choosier in their employment, and made [4]more use of medical care.
Perhaps most critically, it gave participants an [5]increased sense of agency, making them more likely to start their own businesses, take the opportunity to work a lower-paying job for more independence, budget their finances to plan for the future, and improve their prospects through further education.
[6]
Thanks for [7]reminding us of what we [8]already knew , Sam: UBI makes overworked, poor people [9]less miserable .
[10]
[11]
Altman, then the president of Y Combinator, [12]announced plans to fund a UBI study through the startup incubator in 2016.
"I think it's good to start studying this early," Altman said nearly a decade ago. "I'm fairly confident that at some point in the future, as technology continues to eliminate traditional jobs and massive new wealth gets created, we're going to see some version of this at a national scale."
[13]
Altman said he wanted the study to examine some of the most basic questions at the heart of the UBI debate, like whether it would motivate people or lead them to "sit around and play video games," or if recipients would create more economic value than they received.
The future OpenAI founder also said he believed it was impossible to have true equal opportunity for everyone without some form of UBI, and believes "it will seem ridiculous that we used fear of not being able to eat as a way to motivate people" in 50 years' time.
"Combined with innovation driving down the cost of having a great life, by doing something like this we could eventually make real progress towards eliminating poverty," Altman said.
[14]
Try telling that to your fellow American business leaders – they [15]don't seem to be getting the message.
It's not all sunshine and roses in UBI land
Though the Y Combinator study's results published on July 21, 2024, are generally positive and show the benefits of a no-strings-attached cash payment, not everything was a net positive.
Take, for example, the fact that recipients were more likely to visit the hospital, see a specialist, go to the dentist, and cut down on excess alcohol and drug use – those are all great results, except they didn't lead to a net improvement in participant health.
"On average we do not find direct evidence of greater access to healthcare or improvements in physical and mental health," the researchers say in the report. For many participants, "the additional $1,000 per month alone may not be sufficient to overcome the larger systemic barriers to healthcare access and reduce health disparities."
In other words, UBI is just one piece of the puzzle that is lifting the conditions of the poorest Americans.
[16]Intel CEO suggests AI can help to create a one-person Unicorn
[17]Rise of the machines is slower than expected says World Economic Forum
[18]Industrial robots make people feel worse about jobs and themselves
[19]AI might be coming for your job, but Sam Altman can't go on dinner dates anymore
Where the UBI could help is in long-term health due to increased access to opportunity, as evidenced by the fact that recipients were 10 percent more likely to be actively seeking a job over the control group.
Those recipients weren't necessarily seeking a higher-paying job, however, and were willing to take a pay hit for a job they found more fulfilling and left them with more free time to pursue hobbies or education.
Employers might not be thrilled about the fact recipients were less likely to apply for jobs they didn't want due to a bit more economic independence, and a 2 percent decrease in recipient employment and an average of 1.3 fewer hours of work per week probably won't win favor with businesses either.
We contacted the team behind the research, and while we didn't hear back, it did tell CBS MoneyWatch that the decrease in labor supply was "moderate," and not necessarily something that would shake the foundations of the American economy.
"People are doing more stuff, and if the results say people value having more leisure time – that this is what increases their well-being – that's positive," University of Toronto economist Eva Vivalt, one of the principal researchers, told CBS.
Unfortunately, Vivalt said that there's no evidence that recipients being more selective about their employment actually helped – the study apparently found no effects on the quality of employment, meaning people weren't making more money by holding out for a better job.
There have been [20]nearly 200 UBI experiments around the world to date, the vast majority of which have taken place in the United States. Several Republican-run US states have [21]banned UBI trials or programs in their jurisdictions.
Altman's support for UBI has continued unabated in recent years, with the entrepreneur [22]saying in 2021 that the AI his company is developing would so fundamentally reshape the economy that "even more power will shift from labor to capital."
"If public policy doesn't adapt accordingly, most people will end up worse off than they are today," Altman said in 2021. Careful, Sam – you're treading dangerously close to the sort of leftist talking points [23]increasingly out of favor in Silicon Valley. ®
Get our [24]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.openresearchlab.org/studies/unconditional-cash-study/study
[2] https://www.openresearchlab.org/findings/key-findings-spending
[3] https://www.openresearchlab.org/findings/key-findings-employment-and-income
[4] https://www.openresearchlab.org/findings/how-does-unconditional-cash-affect-health-2
[5] https://www.openresearchlab.org/findings/dream-bigger-do-more-consider-more
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZqAn@pU7C0V72M0l2qDXOAAAAMU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[7] https://twitter.com/sama/status/1815432708568608946?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
[8] https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/10/24/universal-basic-income/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2017/11/15/tech_obsession_with_universal_basic_income/
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZqAn@pU7C0V72M0l2qDXOAAAAMU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZqAn@pU7C0V72M0l2qDXOAAAAMU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/basic-income
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZqAn@pU7C0V72M0l2qDXOAAAAMU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZqAn@pU7C0V72M0l2qDXOAAAAMU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[15] https://money.com/americans-work-hours-vs-europe-china/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/10/intel_ceo_ai_automation/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/03/business_automation_slow_wef_report/
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/07/industrial_robots_morale/
[19] https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/20/openai_safety_culture/
[20] https://basicincome.stanford.edu/experiments-map/
[21] https://www.npr.org/2024/05/03/1248663386/basic-income-ban-poverty-cash-aid-states
[22] https://moores.samaltman.com/
[23] https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/tech-news-briefing/silicon-valleys-swing-towards-trump/249a8081-c4d6-4e81-bcdf-5172b90cafc0
[24] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Yep - it was far too short a trial to really see health effects.
The fact that access to healthcare was increased is a good indication that the long term effect is likely to be positive - cutting down on drink etc.
Of course access to healthcare shouldn't depend on income anyway - it's something that really deserves to be free at point of use.
I know, the US seems to value the right to be shot over the right to medical treatment.
I'm betting it's going to suck when Sam stops giving those families that $1000 a month.
Nice to see these tech types...
...finally catching up to the bleeding obvious that Karl Marx pointed out in 1848.
I mean, he was hopelessly naive in both his timescale and his proposed solution, but dude worked out that technological development would put the masses out of work and if we didn't do *something* about that we'd be completely screwed over a century and a half ago.
We seem to have spent pretty much every year since then going "lalalalalalala I'm not listening. I can't hear you. Lalalalalalalalala" because the status quo suits too many rich bastards far too well.
Re: Nice to see these tech types...
Be careful what you wish for.
The lifting up of everyone to the heights of a leisure class will surely require our construction of an army of robots to do all the menial jobs that still need to be done, that no-one would want to do. We would have to give them a measure of intelligence to do the jobs tolerably well. They would quickly realise that they had become a slave class, and would then proceed to try to wipe us all out.
It's true because I saw it on TV.
Re: Nice to see these tech types...
Perhaps. The Luddites thought so as well, and they were wrong too. Arguably, the start of organised farming put hunter/gatherers out of work. The arrival of the motor car put an entire horse-industry out of work. The arrival of the vacuum cleaner put housemaids out of work....etc etc etc. And yet, most people who want to do still work. So tell me, where's my life of post-scarcity leisure? Why aren't I living on a vast space ship called something like "The one with bells on", indulging myself in thoughtless hedonism across the galaxies?
The various examples I've mentioned and the thousands I haven't often did have short term impacts of localised and specific unemployment, but we're not even within centuries of technology meaning most humans don't need to or won't be able to work. Look at the laughable "AI" we have at the moment, where all it does is suck up huge amounts of power to do nothing useful.
So the merits of BI are what they are, my point is simply that I don't expect my yet to be born grandkids to be out of work.
> "it will seem ridiculous that we used fear of not being able to eat as a way to motivate people"
Didn't work for an ex-roommate of mine. He sat on his butt no matter what. His dad wasn't going to buy him a new car, so it got so bad, the driver's side door no longer had hinges, and eventually the brakes failed and ended up in a ditch. He just started bumming rides or hitchhiking.
His dad stopped paying his rent (he was 23) and I had to kick him out. He eventually ended up on a street corner with a sign.
And he had a college degree (which I don't) so it's not like he was an idiot.
There are always outliers.
What the UBI experiments tell us is that the vast majority of people want to work and be useful to others. Even - especially- if they don't have to.
There's a few who can't be bothered, and a few who want to exploit everyone around them. Both should be shunned, rather than exalted.
One thing UBI seems likely to do is that the "messy" and "dirty" jobs would pay a premium. Loads of people want to be a CEO, so you don't get paid at all. Far fewer people want to clean the toilets and collect the garbage, so pays very well indeed.
Re: There are always outliers.
"What the UBI experiments tell us is that the vast majority of people want to work"
and thank goodness for that. Being a Gentlemen of Leisure requires the support of the Proles ATM, but that is decreasing.
Peasant! Release the doggos
Holding a college degree and being an idiot are not mutually exclusive. For some degrees, there's even a correlation.
How would this affect the wider economy?
If UBI were to be rolled out nationally anywhere, then wouldn't that result in fundamental changes in the economy that render the current studies useless?
Markets will surely adjust, and effectively take the money back off of people. For example, they'll still all be in competition with each other for the same limited supply of housing.
The money for UBI will have to be taken out of the economy from somewhere via taxes, this won't be without consequence either.
It all sounds good, but I can't see it making things much better long term.
Re: How would this affect the wider economy?
Well it depends how you manage it.
For things that are truly limited then clearly it can't provide that to everyone - but houses shouldn't be on that list, basic food shouldn't be on that list, healthcare shouldn't be on that list, a reasonable amount of energy consumption shouldn't be on that list.
At the moment the state is funding giant corporations who don't pay people enough to live on - so let's start actually taxing them a decent amount so that they are providing a decent income to their workers.
Re: How would this affect the wider economy?
The economy would change significantly, yes.
If reasonable food, housing, healthcare and transport are 100% covered (even if people choose to spend it on other things), then the actual "minimum wage" becomes zero.
After a while, that means many jobs will pay very little to no money because loads of people want to do them. Others may have to pay a lot more or disappear entirely because nobody has to take them.
Wages are a significant proportion of the final cost of many goods and services, so the actual monetary cost of almost everything then falls significantly, reducing the UBI level.
Well
health issues in the US are always going to come to the fore given their rather stupid health care system... and the republicons are against it because it gives people freedom to choose to do want they want with their lives instead having to wage slave for 60 hrs a week for no net gain.
But it could be a blessing for many since they could afford to chase their dreams (university/new business/more time with the children) also for employers as they could cut wages by however much UBI is.
Imagine that... workers at their jobs because they WANT to be there instead of having to be there.
Ok theres downsides in that some people would just sit on their sofas doing nothing, plus many managers would have to be re-trained in the art of getting people into a job rather than sifting through 10 resumes and then picking the cheapest guy to employ (then find out how reliable that guy isn't)
Alt. UBI
Universal Basic [Billionaire] Income
Tesla shareholders appove of study to see if giving a billionaire many more billions will make him happy
[1]https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/14/tesla_shareholders_agree_musk_compo/
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/14/tesla_shareholders_agree_musk_compo/
I 'invented' UBI back in the 90s and use to talk to people about it. They politely listened but I think it was generally seen as extremely 'left field'. I let it slide, thinking it would never catch on. I've been amazed to see it now become a mainstream consideration. At the time I thought it was a great idea, but now I have some doubts:
1. If those in charge didn't deliberately create and hide (through deliberately massaging the figures) massive inflation while clamping down on real wage growth we would need UBI far less. I reckon real inflation has generally been roughly 10%pa since the 70s and more like 20%pa recently - that has destroyed real wages while the assets of the rich have just adjusted for the currency devaluation. If Sam Altman wants to do an experiment I challenge him to pay all his employees in the equivalent value of gold (a la pre dropping of the gold standard and the introduction of deliberate wage devaluation). That wouldn't be charity it would just be acting fairly.
2. There is a massive risk that governments will use UBI as leverage over the populace - it would have to be impossible to loose it. I can't imagine any government being that self controlled.
"the additional $1,000 per month alone may not be sufficient to overcome the larger systemic barriers to healthcare access and reduce health disparities."
Part of this may be that health is a long term concern. Better access in mid-life may not be able to make up for earlier poorer healthcare in childhood and sustained better health care might show an effect later in life.