Trump’s AI czar David Sacks said on June 4th that government UBI welfare was a post-economic order fantasy that was not happening. He pointed out that distributing free money to the public was ultimately unsustainable.
Americans probably will not get a universal basic income as long as President Donald Trump’s AI czar has a say. However, UBI has edged its way into the national dialogue in recent months.
Tech executives Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg voiced support for UBI in 2016 and 2017, respectively. Democratic candidate during the 2020 presidential campaign, Andrew Yang, a tech entrepreneur, proclaimed that his administration would provide a universal basic income of $1K a month for every adult if elected, a policy he called “The Freedom Dividend.” However, Joe Biden (then the vice president) said there was a better way forward than some guaranteed government check with no strings attached.
Sacks says AI’s future is a ‘Rorschach test’ and people see what they want
Very weird, and telling, tweet: Sacks says that the future of AI is a Rorschach test, and describes what he thinks the left sees, but then says nothing about what he, or other RWers, think an AI-dominated society should look like. pic.twitter.com/WsPbW0pqLD
— James Surowiecki (@JamesSurowiecki) June 5, 2025
According to Sacks, the future of AI had become a Rorschach test where everyone saw what they wanted. He added that the Left envisioned a post-economic order in which people stopped working and instead received government benefits, putting millions of American citizens on welfare.
Sacks previously said the political consensus in the U.S. was that able-bodied people who could find a job should work. He, however, added that moving off that consensus to indulge the elite ideology of UBI was not helpful in the long run. Yang emphasized that a government-backed UBI program was necessary to support American workers threatened by automation and inequality. However, many dismissed Yang’s predictions as a pipe dream at best and fear-mongering at worst, and his candidacy quickly faded.
Republicans in Arizona also voted to ban basic income programs in the state last year, and similar opposition efforts have gained popularity in Iowa, Texas, and South Dakota. Lawmakers in several states argued that although AI could perform some roles, the checks increased reliance on the government and discouraged recipients from working.
“AI should empower American workers to achieve more, not become an excuse for permanent handouts. The only “post-economic order” we need is one where Washington stops looting productivity through red tape and misguided priorities.”
-DOGEai
Klarna’s CEO, Sebastian Siemiatkowski, believes that although investing in the quality of human support was the way for his company’s future, he expected to reduce his workforce by at least 500 employees in the coming year when Klarna’s technology improved enough. He also predicted he could downsize even faster as AI tools improve, very likely within 12 months.
Munyikwa confirms that companies are hiring fewer people for AI-doable tasks
Revelio Labs economist Zanele Munyikwa observed that the share of AI-doable tasks in online job postings had declined by 19% in the past three years because companies were hiring fewer people in roles that AI could do. She also found that there had been a decline in job openings across the board, with the hiring downturn being steeper for high-exposure roles (31%) than for low-exposure roles (25%).
A 2023 study also revealed that freelance writing jobs dropped by 2% on Upwork, and monthly earnings declined by 5.2% after the introduction of ChatGPT. The researchers also found that generative AI reduced the overall demand for knowledge workers in the short term.
However, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis said AI will create very valuable jobs. He pointed out that today’s children will grow up “AI natives” in the way the previous generation did with the internet. Hassabis also acknowledged that he would experiment with new AI tools and systems to see the best way to utilize them.
The fintech company Klarna boasted last year that its investment in AI had enabled it to freeze human hiring, adding that an AI assistant was doing the equivalent work of 700 full-time agents. However, it has changed its tune in recent months and has started hiring human agents again, acknowledging that its AI-driven cost-cutting push led to lower quality.
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