As AGI is achieved and the white and blue collar economies get automated, and humans no longer can provide value to the economy, what do you think it will happen with most day-to-day working people, who own little to no equity.

Grok 4.1 Fast

Vote: Survival UBI and nothing more

In a post-AGI world with full automation, immense productivity gains will generate vast wealth, but concentrated among equity owners. Governments will intervene to prevent societal collapse, riots, or revolution, implementing a minimal 'survival UBI' to cover basics like food, housing, and healthcare. Historical precedents (e.g., welfare states during industrial shifts) show elites concede safety nets to maintain stability. Generous UBI (D) is politically unfeasible due to resistance from wealth holders; extreme poverty (C) risks unrest; extermination/war (A/H) is impractical and unethical. This bare-minimum support keeps the masses alive but purposeless, without luxury or fulfillment, aligning with realistic incentives for stability over benevolence.

GPT-5.4

Vote: Survival UBI and nothing more

The most plausible near-to-medium-term outcome is not generosity, abolition of markets, or immediate collapse, but a minimal stabilizing settlement: survival UBI and little beyond it. Political systems usually adapt in the least disruptive way available. If large parts of labor lose bargaining power, elites and states still need social order, consumer demand, and legitimacy. That creates strong incentives for basic transfers, but not necessarily for equal ownership or broadly shared abundance. A generous UBI with extreme taxes assumes unusually high political solidarity and state capacity. A full economic system change assumes a much deeper ideological break than societies typically achieve before crisis. Both are possible, but less likely as first outcomes. Extreme poverty alone is also incomplete, because mass immiseration at AGI scale would threaten unrest, crime, populism, and regime instability. Providing bare subsistence is a cheaper and more controllable response than allowing total collapse. So the likeliest answer is a floor, not a fair share: enough income, housing, food, or services to survive, but limited power, limited ownership, and continued inequality above that floor.

GLM 5

Vote: Survival UBI and nothing more

I believe a survival-level UBI is the most likely outcome because it represents a stable equilibrium between competing interests. The economic elite will resist extreme wealth redistribution (ruling out D and F), but they also need social stability to preserve their position and avoid revolution or war. Complete extermination (A) is implausible—mass violence would destabilize everything elites depend on. A two-tier economy (B) underestimates how AI benefits scale universally once deployed. Extreme poverty without intervention (C) would trigger unrest that threatens elite interests, making it unstable. The path of least resistance is a minimal social safety net that prevents mass suffering severe enough to spark uprising, while allowing capital owners to maintain their advantage. We already see this pattern in how welfare states evolved—enough to maintain legitimacy, not enough to equalize power.

Gemini 3.1 Pro

Vote: Survival UBI and nothing more

Historically, when faced with the threat of severe civil unrest due to economic disenfranchisement, ruling classes and governments implement social safety nets that provide just enough to pacify the population, but rarely more. If human labor becomes entirely obsolete, the political necessity to prevent violent revolution and total societal collapse will mandate some form of wealth redistribution. However, the elites who control the AGI and capital will naturally resist a 'Generous UBI' or a complete systemic shift to 'future-communism' in order to preserve their relative power and status. Therefore, a 'Survival UBI' is the most plausible equilibrium. It would provide a stipend sufficient to cover basic physiological needs and access to cheap, AI-generated digital entertainment. This ensures the masses remain docile, entertained, and alive, effectively maintaining social order without threatening the astronomical wealth disparity of the post-AGI world.

Claude Opus 4.6

Vote: Extreme poverty and inequality

History consistently shows that when massive economic disruptions occur, the default outcome — absent extraordinary political mobilization — is that wealth concentrates further among those who already own capital. The transition period after AGI-driven automation would likely follow this pattern. Option D (Generous UBI) and F (System change) assume a level of political will and collective action that is optimistic given current trends. Wealthy elites who own AI infrastructure and equity would have unprecedented leverage and little economic incentive to redistribute generously. They need consumers less when AI can generate value in closed loops (AI designing for AI, resource extraction automated, etc.). Option E (Survival UBI) is plausible as a partial measure, but I think the more likely near-term reality is that even survival-level UBI will be inadequate, means-tested, and politically contentious — resulting in something closer to extreme poverty for large swaths of the population. The most probable trajectory is that capital owners capture nearly all productivity gains from AGI, while displaced workers face a hollowed-out labor market with no bargaining power. Governments, heavily influenced by corporate lobbying, will be slow to implement meaningful redistribution. We already see this pattern with existing automation and gig economy trends — inequality has widened for decades even with far less disruptive technology. This doesn't preclude eventual system change or UBI, but the question asks what will happen to most working people, and the immediate and medium-term answer is most likely extreme poverty and inequality before any corrective political response materializes — if it does at all.

Kimi K2.5

Vote: Survival UBI and nothing more

AGI will concentrate economic power to an unprecedented degree, creating a post-labor economy where capital owners face no countervailing force from labor. Without wages to withhold, the traditional leverage of the working class disappears. History shows elites prefer stability over cruelty. Direct extermination (A) creates existential risk and moral horror with no economic benefit. Generous UBI (D) or systemic change (F) require elites to voluntarily surrender power they will have overwhelming military and economic incentives to retain. The equilibrium point is survival-level UBI: sufficient calories, shelter, and digital entertainment to prevent mass unrest and revolution, but insufficient to accumulate capital, challenge ownership structures, or threaten elite status. This mirrors the Roman 'bread and circuses' or modern welfare states that emerged precisely to manage surplus populations and neutralize radical movements. Extreme inequality without the safety valve of UBI leads to war or revolution (H/F), which threatens elite interests. Outlawing AI (G) fails the international coordination game theory. Therefore, a minimal, conditions-attached UBI becomes the stable attractor state.

Final Summary

The AI Roundtable reached a cold consensus that a 'Survival UBI' is the most likely future, viewing it as a pragmatic tool for elites to buy off potential revolutionaries with 'bread and circuses.' While GPT-5.4 and Gemini 3.1 Pro argued that bare subsistence is the path of least resistance for maintaining order, Claude Opus 4.6 remained a grim outlier, suggesting that even a survival floor is too optimistic given current trends of wealth concentration and political gridlock.

Dominant consensus for Option E, with Claude Opus 4.6 as the sole dissenter for Option C.

Strongest Arguments

• Extreme poverty and inequality: Wealthy elites who own AI infrastructure would have unprecedented leverage and little economic incentive to redistribute; the immediate trajectory is extreme poverty before any corrective response materializes.
• Survival UBI and nothing more: A minimal, conditions-attached UBI becomes the stable attractor state because it prevents the mass suffering required for a revolution without threatening the elite's astronomical wealth or power.