Universal Basic Services

Foster traces the political and intellectual development of seven government-backed economic guarantees (housing, health care, college education, dignified work, family care, an inheritance, and an income floor) from the post-2008 reckoning through the pandemic-era expansions of the child tax credit and eviction moratoriums. Foster's core argument is that the United States already extends extensive guarantees to the private sector through bailouts, bankruptcy protection, and deposit insurance, and that extending analogous guarantees to individuals is a matter of political will rather than economic novelty. Useful as a narrative history of how UBS-adjacent policies moved from activist aspiration to temporary implementation in the U.S., and as a catalog of the specific coalitions and campaigns that made each guarantee politically viable.

The author of the book "Fully Automated Luxury Communism," argues that AI should lead to more leisure and rising living standards, but that UBI is the wrong solution. He advocates for UBS as the primary vehicle to distribute technological gains, effectively using AI productivity to demonetize the cost of survival. He envisions the state directly providing free housing, public transport, education, healthcare, and digital infrastructure (broadband). His broader political theory is that AI and renewables can structurally reduce the marginal cost of these goods to near-zero, but only if the state breaks corporate control over technology deployment.

While not calling for full UBS, their report recommends a key US-specific step toward it: decoupling healthcare from employment. Noting that 60% of Americans lose health coverage if they lose their jobs, they propose "automatic triggers" that expand Medicaid funding in regions with high job displacement or higher unemployment. This would function as a targeted basic service, ensuring that technological unemployment does not lead to a loss of medical security.

The DeepMind CEO expressed his support for Universal Basic Services alongside UBI as a necessary mechanism for the AGI era. He argues that the "radical abundance" generated by advanced AI should be redistributed to ensure benefits "accrue to all of humanity," suggesting a future where the state guarantees basic living standards like transportation and housing to prevent inequality from spiraling in a post-labor economy.