“Shaw Walters on AI and a Universal Basic Income” . This in-depth interview captures Shaw Walters, founder of ElizaOS, as a bold contrarian voice in the AI space, pushing back against the growing consensus that Universal Basic Income (UBI) is inevitable in an AI-driven future. Walters argues that UBI risks entrenching systemic inequality, politicization, and a deepening “crisis of meaning,” asserting instead that individual ownership—especially via crypto—offers a more empowering path forward. The sentiment is positive, with a critical eye toward top-down systems and an emphasis on decentralized, bottom-up solutions as a way to preserve human purpose, economic dignity, and resilience in the age of automation.

“Shaw Walters on AI and a Universal Basic Income” . This in-depth interview captures Shaw Walters, founder of ElizaOS, as a bold contrarian voice in the AI space, pushing back against the growing consensus that Universal Basic Income (UBI) is inevitable in an AI-driven future. Walters argues that UBI risks entrenching systemic inequality, politicization, and a deepening “crisis of meaning,” asserting instead that individual ownership—especially via crypto—offers a more empowering path forward. The sentiment is positive, with a critical eye toward top-down systems and an emphasis on decentralized, bottom-up solutions as a way to preserve human purpose, economic dignity, and resilience in the age of automation.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-165862126

Hmmm, interesting take.

My question is do you think decentralised solutions can address the challenges AI-driven automation poses?

Whoever owns the means of production will be wealthy

Bottom up complex emergent solutions will win

I’m not like pro libertarian on this, more like emergent capital oriented socialism

If I’m a maxi, it’s on bottom up, emergent, complex, not top down one size fits all

And this is mostly a criticism of the incentives chain. You would have to tax the riches companies in America 90% of their revenue in order to pay for it

If the numbers made sense I would be on board

But more likely scenario is we make it easy for anyone to build and raise on valuable things and let anyone in on it

I was in on the oculus kickstarter. If I had gotten shares instead of an obsolete headset, I could have taken a year or two off to just build.

So at the end of the day, we are going against the UBI top to bottom approach, is that what we are trying to get at the end of the day?

Then the rich will just keep getting richer, they own the means of production, and this will promote top to down solutions instead.

I understand that the bottom-up solutions promotes community driven approaches and would be a big winner at the end of the day.