By: Patrick Kulp
February 9, 2017
The idea of a universal basic income has found growing support in Silicon Valley as robots threaten to radically change the nature of work.
Ebay founder Pierre Omidyar is the latest tech bigwig to get behind the concept. His philanthropic investment firm, the Omidyar Network, announced Wednesday that it will give nearly half a million dollars to a group testing the policy in Kenya.
Universal basic income is the notion that a government should guarantee every citizen a yearly sum of money, no strings attached. The thinking is that such a program would relieve economic stress as automation technology severely reduces the demand for labor.
Theories along these lines have existed for centuries, but their proponents have never had much luck convincing governments to give them a shot. Thus, the only data on real-world effects come from a few scattered experiments throughout the years.