# Universal Basic Income Fails If AI Collapses the Tax Base by Emad Mostaque > Tax-based universal basic income is not a viable universal answer if the tax base collapses along with human employment. Tax-based universal basic income relies on the government taxing economic activity—such as AI tokens or robots—and redistributing the proceeds. There will be a token tax that people have proposed: every OpenAI token that you use, there’s a surcharge on it. But [token prices] might go to zero, because it’s like a 100,000-times-a-year price decrease. Other people have said, “Let’s tax the robots,” and that can happen, but the cost of robotics is incredibly low. > **— Adapted from Emad Mostaque**, *Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu, 2026* ## Sources and Context - **Recording or publication:** [Impact Theory at 58:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsdcF7EEvhM&t=3488s) — The poster text is explicitly labeled as an adaptation of the complete argument beginning at the linked timecode; it must not be represented as verbatim speech. - **Reconciled source dossier:** [[research/AI Is Now So Good They Will Pay You to Quit|AI Is Now So Good They Will Pay You to Quit]] — preserves transcript order, speaker attribution, editorial conventions, and the surrounding argument from which this Reminder was promoted. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Simple Reminders|Simple Reminders]] - **Article:** [[articles/Vertically Integrating an AI Superpower from AI Factory to Citizen|Vertically Integrating an AI Superpower]] - **Article:** [[articles/The Immediate AI Risk Is the Public|The Immediate AI Risk Is the Public]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/Emad Mostaque|Emad Mostaque]] - [[wiki/Post-Employment Economy|Post-Employment Economy]] - [[wiki/Universal Basic Income|Universal Basic Income]] ## Share on Social Media ``` Tax-based universal basic income is not a viable universal answer if the tax base collapses along with human employment. Tax-based universal basic income relies on the government taxing economic activity—such as AI tokens or robots—and redistributing the proceeds. There will be a token tax that people have proposed: every OpenAI token that you use, there’s a surcharge on it. But [token prices] might go to zero, because it’s like a 100,000-times-a-year price decrease. Other people have said, “Let’s tax the robots,” and that can happen, but the cost of robotics is incredibly low. — Adapted from Emad Mostaque, Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu, 2026 https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-emad-mostaque-universal-basic-income-fails-if-ai ```