Abundance Is The Cage
New technologies often arrive riding a wave of “hopium,” where its gains are exaggerated and its risks are glossed over. Reflecting on the internet’s emergence in the mid-1990s, many visionaries predicted a digital utopia of free information, dominant e-commerce and a borderless world. However, they failed to foresee the return of censorship, the actual pace of global adoption, or the deep psychological impact it would have on society. We are currently witnessing a similar cycle with artificial intelligence, as its advantages are grossly exaggerated while its potential hazards remain largely ignored. Elon Musk recently ignited a firestorm of debate across the internet when he proposed a controversial solution to the anticipated economic upheaval caused by artificial intelligence. He tweeted:
“Universal HIGH INCOME via checks issued by the Federal government is the best way to deal with unemployment caused by AI. AI/robotics will produce goods & services far in excess of the increase in the money supply, so there will not be inflation.”
In short, Elon is asking you to trust the state’s judgement as the chief allocator of productivity gains from AI adoption. This is the same government that he unsuccessfully tried to repair with DOGE before throwing in the towel and declaring it to be “basically unfixable”. That’s the same group of people that he believes will do a stellar job of issuing UHI responsibly and wants you to put your trust in their hands? How’s that for a contradiction! He further asserts, with characteristic bravado, that there will be “no inflation.” Framing it as liberation since the machines will do all the work; while the citizen receives the dividend. Who could object?
I object. I do so not merely on the grounds of economics (we all know there is no free lunch) but simply because this is a blueprint for serfdom. It is the most elegant form of subjugation yet devised; servitude dressed in the language of abundance.
The False Binary
Musk presents a false binary: either the machine replaces you and you receive a government cheque, or the machine replaces you and you starve. This framing conceals the actual question, which is not whether machines will augment human productive capacity, but who will own the machines, who will benefit from their output, and in what monetary system the gains will be denominated?
Furthermore this idea is based on a chain of heroic assumptions that the AI industry will rake in tens of trillions in revenue; that a functional state will tax those revenues honestly and that the state will simply distribute the cheques to citizens, equally, without using its distribution as leverage in any way. That’s also assuming the AI agents themselves don’t “rebel” against the “useless eaters” that are benefitting from all their hard work.
Given how companies like Palantir are already using AI and have been integrated into the defence infrastructure of the US, as well as other key parts of the economy; over time as their power grows what’s to stop them from becoming the new unelected government? Perhaps this is the real plan, that is being sold to us under the guise of “everyone will have a penthouse” utopian propaganda. That’s before we even consider the fact that the state would probably use a CBDC for such a program. A government that can give you everything can take everything away. A citizenry that depends on the state for its subsistence is not free; it is domesticated.
We saw this during the plandemic when vaccine passports became the gateway to participating in normal life, and the same government that Elon wants you to trust created a two-tiered society where you had less rights as an unvaccinated person. With this in mind, what’s to stop a government that now has that kind of power from abusing it by targeting dissidents or settling political scores? What of people living under repressive governments, what happens to them when this kind of power is handed over to the state?
The inflation illusion
Musk’s most audacious claim is that a Federal program issuing “high income” cheques to tens of millions of displaced workers will produce no inflation. That is definitely untrue.
During the 2025 fiscal year, the U.S. government recorded expenditures of $7 trillion against $5.23 trillion in revenue. This shortfall was financed through borrowing, contributing to a massive national debt that has now climbed to $39 trillion. AI is incapable of resolving the problem of a state that habitually outspends its income. This lack of fiscal discipline, rather than a shortfall in productivity, is what ultimately fuels inflation. Inflation is not primarily a function of supply chains or price indices but it is the inevitable consequence of increasing the money supply faster than the production of real goods and services. Call it what you will: “printing,” “deficit spending,” “quantitative easing,” or “Universal High Income.” The mechanism is the same. Whenever new units of currency chase a stock of goods that has not grown commensurately, prices rise. The purchasing power of existing savings erodes and inevitably the poor, who are always the last to receive new money, always the first to pay higher prices, suffer the most.
Musk’s retort, presumably, is that AI will so dramatically increase productivity that output will keep pace with the new money. Perhaps, but this argument contains a fatal contradiction. If AI produces such abundance that inflation is impossible, then the displaced worker needs no government cheque as the abundance itself will drive prices toward zero. Should the abundance be insufficient to prevent inflation, then the program destroys the very purchasing power it claims to provide. You cannot have it both ways.
