The Biggest UBI Experiment in History Failed: The Cover Up

In this episode, hosts engage in a detailed discussion about a Universal Basic Income (UBI) study, exploring its outcomes and societal implications. The study, funded by Sam Altman of OpenAI, provided $1,000 monthly to participants over three years. Contrary to expectations, the recipients had $3,000 less wealth than those not receiving the funds, indicating potential negative impacts of UBI on financial security. They delve into how this aligns with human nature, the role of financial literacy, and broader implications for economic policies and future societal structures amidst AI advancements. The video also critiques media representation of the study and questions the reliability of objective reporting. The hosts connect UBI's potential impacts to larger themes of work, leisure, and purpose in an AI-dominated future.

Speaker 18: [00:00:00] Well, here we are again. Yeah. You remember our learning machine over there?

Speaker 19: What's it going to teach us today, Mr. Money?

Speaker 18: I'll turn it on and you'll see.

Malcolm Collins: when they gave people a 1000 dollars a month over the course of 3 years, 36, 000 dollars in all.

On average, recipients of this money had 3, 000 less total wealth than recipients who didn't get this money.

And I need to point out here. They didn't even increase the time they spent with their kids. Like to me, like, that's the, like the cruel twist of the blade of how fundamentally selfish the average human is,

Speaker 22: Yeah.

Speaker 23: I don't like

Speaker 22: people.

Speaker 23: Oh, well, now that's not fair, Roy. Have you met all of them?

Speaker 22: I've met enough of them. People. What a bunch of b******s.

Malcolm Collins: people are like,

I can't [00:01:00] afford to spend time with my kids. And we have proof now that even if you had more money, you wouldn't spend more time with your kids when people are like, if I had more money or if I had inherited money or blah, blah, blah, like I would be living a different life, like that's functionally untrue.

You would actually maybe be living a materially worse life and now means if reparations were to be paid as a form of UBI to the black community, it would permanently monetarily sabotage the community.

Speaker 26: If you're just joining us, black people got their reparations checks today, and in short, all hell is broken loose. So how did you become the world's wealthiest man, Tron? Hot hand in a dice game, baby girl. welL,

Speaker 27: I think what everyone wants to know now is what are you going to do with all this money?

Speaker 28: I'm going to reinvest my money into the community.

Speaker 27: Oh, that's a very nice gesture. What were you saying? Hi! Okay.

Is that your son?

Speaker 28: No, no, I just bought this baby Cash.

Malcolm Collins: Now, here's where it gets dystopian. At the top of the [00:02:00] page it's just one line for the results of the study.

Cache increases possibilities

Speaker: for I knew that even though some of you supported us, some others were looking at me and thinking, You're a liar!

You're a liar! You know something that you're not telling us, you slimy scumbag liar! You know, that's what people would say to me.

Would you like to know more?

Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone! I am excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be discussing something that changes my view on economics. The media. And what might be the most optimal economic system?

This is a large experiment that was run by Sam Altman of OpenAI to see if UBI would work. UBI means Universal Basic Income.

It is the idea that

It might make sense to just do cash handouts across the population, like say everybody gets 1, [00:03:00] 000 every month, and that this might be a lighter weight way to do welfare, and it might have some moral or even economic justification. Well, I am going to briefly describe the findings from this study that I thought were most relevant.

Then I'm going to go over the way the news. Reported the studies findings and the way his organization open a I reported the studies findings. So, the information that I thought was an important takeaway is that when they gave people a 1000 dollars a month over the course of 3 years, 36, 000 dollars in all.

On average, recipients of this money had 3, 000 less total wealth than recipients who didn't get this money.

Simone Collins: Wait, wait, no, no, no, hold on. I just want to make sure I have this right. [00:04:00] They were poorer. The people who got extra money but were not told to change anything else about their lives. Had less money than before this experiment if they received the, what is it?

1, 000 a month payments.

Malcolm Collins: Yes So 36, 000 in total. No, no, no keep in mind this means somehow when contrasted with the other people they lost 39, 000 because it's not just the 3, 000 less to their wealth You also have to consider all the money that was given to them that at the start of the experiment, you know Should have made them well They managed to lose.

So they managed to lose a considerable sum of money.

Simone Collins: Ooh. I didn't think about it that way. I was like, okay, well, if you started out with 50, 000 and then you ended with a little less than that, you know, it's fine.

Malcolm Collins: It's worse. So for every dollar received by the program's participants earnings, excluding the cash transfer decreased by at least 12 cents.

Oh, so they were working less. We'll get to all that. We'll get to all that. I'm just giving you the, the. [00:05:00] Things I thought were most relevant. Okay. All right. Total household income fell by at least 13 cents per dollar received.

So, to your 1st question, recipients of reduced their by 4 to 5%. These reductions translated to 2. 2 fewer hours per week. 114 fewer hours annually recipients mostly spent this time on more leisure activities and not pursuing education or work.

Higher quality jobs or spending time or caring for family members. The authors noted, quote, Interestingly, we do not , observe those with children spending more or less time with children as a result of the transfers. Moreover, households without children reduce their work by more than households with children.

So, when people are like, oh, if I had more money, I'd spend more time with my kid, it's like, err, like, statistically, that's wrong. And I should note here that they actually kind of tried to go to participants, like, they would ask them every time they meet, like, how much time are you spending on additional education?

How [00:06:00] much time are you spending on additional training? How much time are you spending on

Simone Collins: See, you could even argue that they kind of

Malcolm Collins: And they did not. They still

Simone Collins: didn't even.

Malcolm Collins: No evidence of this. Now, here's where it gets dystopian. Okay. On OpenAI's website . At the top of the page where they, on OpenAI research, it's just one line for the results of the study.

Cache increases possibilities.

Speaker: For I knew that even though some of you supported us, some others were looking at me and thinking, You're a liar!

You're a liar! You know something that you're not telling us, you slimy scumbag liar! You know, that's what people would say to