Altman's $14 million basic income study is out, and the results are surprising

Source: AGI Hunt

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, spent a huge amount of money, a full $14 million, to conduct a big experiment, just to verify a question:

What will happen if you give poor people $1,000 a month?

This experiment is no joke. For a full 3 years, 3,000 Americans with an income of less than $28,000 participated in it.

Of them, 1,000 people received $1,000 a month, and the remaining 2,000 people could only get $50 (it’s sad to think about it).

The result? It’s shocking!

Let’s talk about the good news first:

1. People who received the money increased their savings by 25%, which is much more than the control group.
   

2. They also became more compassionate, spending an extra $22 per month to help others, which is 26% more than the control group.
   

3. Some people even moved to a better neighborhood or lived in a more expensive house.

But! Here comes the bad news:

1. People who received the money actually worked less, and their income growth was not as good as that of the control group.
   

2. Although they had less stress and better mental state at the beginning, these benefits disappeared without a trace in the second and third years.
   

3. What's even more disappointing is that the money did not significantly improve their physical health.
   

Interestingly, the experts' predictions about the results of the experiment were also surprising. They originally thought that giving money would bring more benefits, but reality slapped them in the face.

But then again, Sam Altman's operation was also generous! In order to ensure the scientific nature of the experiment, they put in a lot of effort:

1. Randomly recruit participants by email, and deliberately find more low-income groups.

2. In order to prevent the control group from not cooperating because of the low salary, everyone was given a "basic salary" of $50 per month.

3. Even cooperated with the Illinois government to pass legislation to ensure that the experimental income does not affect the welfare of participants.
   

And in order to track the participants' life changes in all aspects, the research team can be said to have wracked their brains:

1. Let the participants install a mobile app to record their time usage.
   

2. Regularly conduct face-to-face or telephone surveys, with a response rate of up to 95% (this execution is amazing).
   

3. Also let the participants draw blood to check their physical condition, and they did everything they could.
   

4. Even the credit report was checked to see everyone's debt and bank balance changes.
   

It has to be said that the scale and meticulousness of this experiment are definitely at the top level in the academic circle.

Then the question is, why did Sam Altman make such a big move?

It turns out that this AI leader has long seen that artificial intelligence may take away many people's jobs. So he believes that in the future, everyone may need to be paid a "basic salary" so that everyone can have something to eat.

This experiment is to see if this trick is reliable.

Interestingly, not only Sam Altman, but also Musk and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey support this idea. Even the old AI veteran Geoffrey Hinton recently suggested that the British government should implement a universal basic income.

It seems that the big guys are really afraid that AI will take our jobs!

But having said that, the results of this experiment also gave us a wake-up call:

Just giving money can’t solve all problems.

As one participant, Sarah, said:

"I started to fall into a mindset where I felt that money came too easily, and I wasn't paying as much attention to my finances. Now that I think about it, I wish I had saved more."

Another participant, Carla, said:

"When I got the call saying I could get $1,000 a month, I almost cried. It felt like a miracle. Knowing that I could pay off that pile of medical debt, my brain seemed to enter another realm."

It seems that money can indeed solve many problems, but it may also bring new problems.

Then the question is, since the direct distribution of money is not satisfactory, what new ideas does Sam Altman have?

It is said that he recently proposed a new concept called "National Basic Computing Power".

What does it mean? It means that everyone can get a part of GPT-7's computing power and use it however they want.

Sam Altman said:

"You own a part of your own productivity."

Does it sound cool? But it's hard to say whether this thing is reliable or not.

In short, although the results of this experiment are not satisfactory, it also gives us a lot to think about.

In the AI ​​era, how to ensure everyone's basic life is indeed a question worth pondering.

Although Sam Altman's operation did not find a perfect answer, it at least pointed out a direction for us:

Just giving money is not enough, there must be more comprehensive supporting measures.

So the question is, how do you think the livelihood of the public should be guaranteed in the AGI era?