They plan to offer 30 participants £1,600 per month with no strings attached to see how it affects them mentally and physically.
Autonomy, the group organizing the experiment, promised the recipients that their anonymity would be preserved. It claims the group will be both randomly selected and “representative.” The think tank also plans to employ a ‘control group’, which will answer the same questionnaires as their well-paid counterparts but without the monthly checks. While it’s unclear how a nationwide scheme would be funded, the think tank suggested the money would come from private philanthropy or local authorities.
Some critics of UBI argue it takes money away from social services for the truly needy or incentivizes sloth. Many users expressed doubt that a government-backed UBI would ever come without strings attached, denouncing it as the first step toward communism – or an AI dystopia.
