If AI Takes Our Jobs, We Deserve a Dividend

If public money helps lay AI’s groundwork, the public should be welcome at the investor meeting for more than the opening coffee and the invoice. Then, if automation eliminates jobs and profits rise, workers find their seats have been optimized out of existence while the owners keep the upside behind a velvet rope.

A public dividend is a research royalty, not a handout: a return when public support helps build the foundation and workers bear the cost of the transformation. Billionaire logic says everyone can finance the future, but only the owners get to cash it. If AI delivers the gains, the public should not be the unpaid investor shown the exit by the machine it helped support.