Economy & democracy
The Automated Economy
Goods and services produced primarily through AI, computers, and robotics, with little direct human labour.
The starting premise of this framework is that companies using AI and robotics can produce enough to meet basic human needs with far less human labour. We call this increasingly automated production the Automated Economy (AE).
Existing companies can become more automated, and new companies can be built around it. The name describes how production happens; it does not specify who owns the companies or who receives their income.
Planning for SI automation
SI—superintelligence—is our term for future AI systems with capabilities beyond humans across a broad range of cognitive tasks. AI remains the term used here for present technology and existing research. SI identifies the future scenario we want institutions to prepare for.
In this scenario, companies combine SI with capable robotics to automate most production tasks, including highly skilled work. Intelligence alone does not supply robots, energy, materials, or infrastructure: deployment also depends on these resources and their costs.
The scenario does not assume a particular arrival date. It asks how people retain income, agency, and opportunities when companies need far fewer workers. The funding page connects IMF research on automation to this further question.
What is inside an automated company
| Part of the company | What it means for the economy |
|---|---|
| Productive assets | Computers, software, robots, buildings, intellectual property, and other resources used to produce goods and services. |
| Sales and other income | Payments from customers, including other businesses and households. |
| Costs and investment | Energy, materials, services, upkeep, development, and the people still involved. Buying an asset and using it over time have different accounting effects. |
| Profit | The income remaining after the relevant costs. It can be retained in the business or distributed to owners. |
| Ownership | Shares and other ownership rights determine who controls assets and receives the associated returns. |
These categories help identify possible public contributions. Assets, sales, value added, profits, and distributions measure different things. A proposal needs to say which it taxes and account for costs, deductions, existing taxes, and effects on prices and investment.
Why production alone is not enough
A company’s commercial incentive is to make a profit. It can earn money by meeting human needs, but people’s needs do not always come with the ability to pay. A company can also profit by selling to other automated businesses. Commercial success therefore does not ensure that everyone’s basic needs are met or that production serves humanity’s wider interests.
A highly automated company can produce more while paying fewer people for their work. If the income that once supported households is not replaced through other routes, people can lose the purchasing power that sustains care, craftsmanship, teaching, and other human work.
The POE proposal is to keep prosperity flowing into people’s lives through an appropriate mix of wages, ownership income, public revenue, services, support, and paid opportunities. The mix and scale are democratic choices.
Competition may reduce profits. That is why the funding framework considers a wider set of tax bases and public investment returns alongside corporate and ownership income.
Two connected parts of one economy
The Automated Economy describes production with little direct human labour. The Personal Opportunity Economy describes people’s work, incomes, choices, and opportunities. They overlap: a business can use robots and employ skilled people, and a teacher or craftsperson can use AI.
People buy automated goods as well as human services. Companies buy from one another. Public budgets can support income, education, and useful work. These flows connect the whole economy.
Companies sit along a continuum: each has its own mix of automated and human work, and that mix changes over time. AE and POE describe aspects of the economy rather than fixed company types. Even within one task, a person can work with AI. See the company and money-flow diagram for these relationships.
What remains a democratic choice
People decide the public contribution from prosperity, the balance between income support and paid opportunities, and the rules under which businesses operate. Individuals choose how to learn, work, create, and spend within that framework.
The aim is a good life for everyone, with room to earn more through effort, skill, talent, responsibility, and enterprise.