To End Suffering

(Eight Minute Read)

AI automation is not a choice; it's bound to happen. Here's a thought experiment: close your eyes and picture the evolution of humanity's timeline. Humans spent ~300,000 years as hunter-gatherers, then ~12,000 years ago we started settling down and farming. From there: tool invention, writing, cities, industry, the printing press, computation, the internet. Every step compounds the next. This trajectory is not random, it is directional.

So, the real question isn’t if full AI automation happens – it’s whether it happens in three years, or ten years, or one hundred years, because eventually it will happen (assuming we all don't bomb ourselves to death first). The trajectory has already been set for thousands of years. This is the code of evolution.

With AI automation, tasks that once required entire teams of workers to accomplish will be completed by a small number of specialists wielding armies of AI agents. With AI leverage, one person may be able to match the productivity of ten people traditionally, or more. AI automation is not going to “replace” workers, it’s going to “displace” workers. For example, in the architecture industry, AI has allowed our startup to build software to complete workflows that would’ve traditionally taken architects days – now reduced to a five-minute process. This is not an isolated case; it is a pattern. We see specialists in every industry waking up to realizing the potential of using AI to automate workflows in their respective industries. The real benefit in AI is not “intelligence” in the human sense per se; the real benefit is in speed and memory, which translates to automation and scale.

This will inevitably lead to large-scale job losses across most white-collar industries, and subsequently large-scale blue-collar job losses through labor shifts and robotics. Unfortunately, modern society has deeply tied our sense of identity and survival to the concept of “work”. When mass layoffs occur, people will suffer and markets will stagnate. We will need some form of wealth distribution like “Universal Basic Income” (UBI), a system in which the government provides all citizens with a regular income stipend, for baseline survival. Figures like Elon Musk and Sam Altman alike have already pointed in this direction, typically framing UBI as a currency stipend. We argue that UBI should not be administered as “currency” – the effective solution should be distribution in the form of "food", "shelter", and “health”, establishing a guaranteed baseline of survival, removing human survival dependency on “currency”. Rather than “UBI”, we reframe this system as “Universal Baseline Survival Guarantee” (UBSG).

If AI automation can produce output at scale, then it can essentially support true abundance, including abundance of basic “food”, “shelter”, and “health” needs at levels sufficient to sustain humanity. We’re not talking about luxury, but a reliable and decent standard of living. This is not about redistribution or charity; this is about systems design – designing a system that sustains and grows by aligning AI’s evolution with the society it serves. Variations of this idea are already emerging – for example, Sam Altman has proposed mechanisms like large-scale wealth funds to distribute the gains of advanced AI more broadly.

But a system like this cannot function as a one-way transfer, the system excels if it is participatory by design. Beyond the baseline survival guarantee, individuals need clear pathways to contribute to and benefit from the system itself – not as an obligation, but as a open surface for participation and equity. This is integral to the system, because in a fully automated economy, the greatest risk to capital is the collapse of consumer demand – no income means no market. People should be able to build on top of the system, improve it, shape how it evolves, and own a part of it if they participate. And this restores spending power, allowing individuals to direct capital toward companies that return value to them. Smart corporations will economically align with consumers as a dominant strategy, because aligned systems win – on growth, retention, value, and system resilience. The key is that participation is possible and connected to the system’s growth. Access to ownership and influence should be broad enough to keep the system adaptive and compounding. Without participation, the system falls flat and plateaus. But with participation, the system compounds and accelerates – creating immense value for everyone within it.

This is a version of the future that is not only sustainable, but thrives in real market prosperity. It sits somewhere between capitalism and socialism, preserving the dynamism of markets while establishing a guaranteed baseline for survival. It maintains the role of currency – those who want to accumulate wealth, build companies, and buy Lamborghinis should be able to fully do so, with no maximum ceiling. If Elon wants to innovate and push the boundaries in space dominance, robotics, and health – and become humanity’s first sextillionaire (that’s $1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000), why not!? This system is about removing our survival dependency on “currency”. No one would have to wake up fearing they can’t provide for themselves or for their children. This will unlock larger markets and faster growth, because downside risk is eliminated at the base, while the upside has no limit.

Imagine a future where people wake up without the pressure of worrying about becoming hungry, homeless, or sick. Some will choose to do nothing with their lives and that’s fine (but that will get boring very quickly), while many others will shift toward higher-order pursuits. When survival pressure is removed, human behavior tends to move toward building, creating, exploring, and understanding (driven by boredom/curiosity, social belonging, hedonism, competition, expression, legacy, etc.). New domains of focus will expand, including longevity, scientific discovery, space exploration, health innovation, knowledge, connection, art, culture, meaningful experiences, healing – the more humanist aspects of being human.

Ultimately, the real scare isn't about Al or automation, the real scare is we all go hungry, homeless, and sick. If we can solve survival in the form of this Universal Baseline Survival Guarantee system, then Al stops looking like a threat and starts looking like the engine that propels humanity forward.

How would this Universal Baseline Survival Guarantee realistically function in practice? The structure can be understood as a three-layer model: 1] The baseline foundation, 2] The participation/equity layer, and 3] The competitive and prosperous frontier.

1] BASELINE FOUNDATION: This first layer is the non-negotiable layer that supports everything; it guarantees baseline survival in the form of essential “food”, “shelter”, and “health” needs, independent of employment or income. It is built on the premise that, with AI-driven systems, the production of essential goods can be scaled toward abundance. Food supply can be stabilized through AI-assisted agriculture, in areas like hydroponics, vertical farming, robotic cultivation systems, pest control – paired with AI-coordinated distribution networks that forecast demand and minimize waste (technically, the world already produces enough calories to sustain the entire human population). Shelter can be delivered through automated design and construction workflows, including modular pre-fabricated systems and factory robotic assembly, reducing the cost and time required to produce housing at scale. As architects, we know the current bottleneck in building housing (in Canada and the USA) is in the friction of regulation (zoning, building code, permitting approvals, etc.). With AI, we are developing automation software for compliance that can be embedded into design, to be able to compress permit approvals and unlock scale. It is all very possible, not easy (at first), but not impossible. As these systems compound in efficiency, the marginal cost of survival drops, allowing this layer to function as a reliable, resource-backed floor for society. This is not scarcity management; this is engineered abundance.

2] PARTICIPATION / EQUITY: On top of the baseline sits the participation/equity layer, where people can take part in the system. This layer serves as the critical bridge between survival and prosperity, acting as a market stabilization mechanism. In an automated world, the greatest threat to capital is the collapse of the consumer market – no income means no customers. To prevent an economic death spiral, this participation layer converts the gains of automation into distributed liquidity. Through open access to shared infrastructure (like open-source AI models), people can build, extend, and specialize on top of the baseline. Participation can take part in many forms, including developing tools, training and refining models, or creating entirely new services and domains. In return, people who contribute can share in the upside through ownership/shares, rewards/capital/dividends, governance influence, recognition, etc. This layer is not optional; it is the engine that keeps the system stable and enables the next layer (the “Competitive / Prosperous Frontier” layer) to thrive. Without it, the system stagnates and becomes fragile. Participation is what converts the system from a fixed baseline into a compounding one. Without participation, the system holds; with participation, it accelerates.

3] COMPETITIVE / PROSPEROUS FRONTIER: The top layer is an open arena where individuals and companies (like OpenAI, Anthropic, SpaceX, etc.) pursue ambition and build without imposed ceilings. This is where ultra-high-velocity innovation occurs, pushing the frontier in areas like advanced AI, longevity and health discovery, space dominance, creative/humanist industries, environmental sustainability, and entirely new domains that emerge from compounding capability. By decoupling risk from basic livelihood, the system unlocks a broader pool of talent willing to engage in difficult long-horizon problems, while still preserving and driving the intensity of market incentives. The result is a frontier that moves faster and grows larger, because the downside has been structurally removed, while the upside is has no limit. To the moon, and beyond.

In this three-layer model, people will participate and benefit at different levels – a true “win-win-win” system. Some will innovate or grow companies, some will raise families, some will create or explore, and some may choose to step back entirely – however everyone will have a foundation and a way to benefit from the system. The system does not dictate how one must live; it guarantees that one can. This isn’t a system where people compete over limited resources, it’s about creating more for everyone. It is a structure where stability at the base enables expansion at the frontier. When survival is secured and participation is open, human potential is no longer constrained by necessity. The result is a system where we do not compete over survival – we build beyond it. We could end suffering.