Published on January 07, 2026 by Claudio Cabete
Why automation must help pay for the society it transforms
Artificial intelligence and humanoid robotics are no longer speculative technologies. They are already replacing human labor across software, logistics, manufacturing, customer service, and increasingly, physical-world jobs. The pace of this change matters.
We are heading toward a near future where:
- Productivity continues to rise
- Corporate profits increase
- The need for human labor declines
This creates a structural problem: if wages disappear, purchasing power disappears with them. Our economic system still relies on human income as the primary mechanism for distributing value. Automation breaks that mechanism.
The question is no longer whether jobs will be displaced, but how society absorbs the shock without collapse.
Universal Basic Income (UBI) is often discussed as a future emergency response—something to deploy after mass unemployment arrives. That framing is dangerous.
If UBI is introduced after widespread displacement:
- It will feel like charity, not participation
- Political backlash will be severe
- Automation will be framed as the enemy
If UBI funding begins before the shock:
- The system adapts gradually
- Companies normalize the cost
- Society builds trust in the transition
UBI should be infrastructure, not disaster relief.
Historically, labor has been how value flows back into society. When companies replace people with machines, they remove wages from the economy.
That missing income must be replaced—or consumption, stability, and social cohesion fail.
When a company replaces a human role with AI or a robot:
Example:
- A $100,000/year human job is replaced by automation
- The company contributes $50,000/year to a UBI fund
This is not a penalty—it is value recapture.
The company still wins:
- Lower total costs
- Higher productivity
- No benefits, sick leave, or turnover
Society wins:
- Purchasing power remains
- Automation gains are shared
- The transition becomes sustainable
Traditional corporate taxes:
- Are easy to avoid
- Do not scale with automation
- Tax profits after the fact
A labor-replacement tax:
- Is tied directly to the cause of disruption
- Scales automatically as automation increases
- Preserves incentives to innovate
If you remove wages from the economy, you must replace purchasing power.
Automation is not the enemy. Delay is.
If we wait until mass displacement arrives, the response will be chaotic and reactive. If we begin funding Universal Basic Income now, using the productivity gains of AI and humanoid robots, the transition can be stable, humane, and economically sound.
The future is being automated.
The benefits should be shared.