Computers, intelligent machines, and robots seem like the workforce of the future. And as more and more jobs are replaced by technology, people will have less work to do and ultimately will be sustained by payments from the government, predicts Elon Musk, the iconic Silicon Valley futurist who is the founder and CEO of SolarCity, Tesla, and SpaceX. According to Musk, there really won't be any other options.

Eight, a charitable organization based in Belgium, is preparing to run a basic income pilot in Uganda (as previously announced in Basic Income News). The two-year pilot is set to launch in January 2017, and will form the basis for a documentary. 27Documentary filmmaker Steven Janssens and sociologist Maarten Goethals founded the charity Eight in 2015, with the vision of reducing global inequality and allowing all people the opportunity to flourish. Eight euros per week is the amount needed to provide a basic income for one adult and two children in impoverished areas, such as parts of Uganda.

57% of the world's jobs are at risk of being automated. Universal Basic Income may be our only way out. Here's why.

Whether it’s the FitBit on your arm, a bathroom mirror with a heads-up-display, or the orchestra of smart light bulbs that you have in your home, the Internet of Things, despite its ridiculous name, is feature-creeping on the life of the average consumer. Cheaper than ever before can high-functioning internet connected devices be manufactured, thus offering entrepreneurs the proverbial “Gold Mine” of opportunity for innovation and automation. And, as is often the case with tech, the reception has been cautiously optimistic.

Almost two centuries ago an idea was born with such explanatory power that it created shock waves across all of human society and whose aftershocks we’re still feeling to this day. It’s so simple and yet so powerful, that after all these years, it remains capable of making people question their very faith. The idea of which I speak is that through random mutation and natural selection, every living thing around us was created through millions and even billions of years of what is effectively trial and error, not designed by some intelligent creator. It is the process of evolution through natural selection.

“I’m not sure what else one would do.” In addition to addressing issues at SpaceX, Elon Musk spent some time during a Friday CNBC interview addressing how automation will impact the job market. Musk’s Tesla Motors is leading the way to self-driving cars, while also pushing factories to new levels of automation. And he thinks that workers displaced by those and other forms of automation will need help permanently, and on a broad scale.

If Donald Trump maxes out his time in the White House, he'll leave office in 2024. By that time, economists predict robotics and artificial intelligence will have begun their unstoppable march into American factories. People will start losing their jobs en masse, and it'll be up to President Trump and his cabinet to devise an economic escape plan.

Upcoming UBI programs in Canada, Finland, Uganda, and other countries are very likely to tip the scales in the universal basic income debate one way or the other in 2017. Whether or not UBI is it, we need to find a solution to the problems that are inevitable as automation and AI replace human workers in the coming years.

Finland has become the first country in Europe to pay its unemployed citizens a basic monthly income, amounting to almost $600 US in a unique social experiment which is hoped to cut government red tape, reduce poverty and boost employment.

Finland has become the first country in Europe to pay its unemployed citizens an unconditional monthly sum, in a social experiment that will be watched around the world amid gathering interest in the idea of a universal basic income. Under the two-year, nationwide pilot scheme, which began on 1 January, 2,000 unemployed Finns aged 25 to 58 will receive a guaranteed sum of €560 (£475). The income will replace their existing social benefits and will be paid even if they find work.

At a time when robots crowd factory lines, algorithms steer cars and smart screens litter the checkout aisles, automation is the new spectre. The robots, they say, are coming for our jobs. Let them, reply the luxury communists. Located on the futurist left end of the political spectrum, fully automated luxury communism (FALC) aims to embrace automation to its fullest extent. The term may seem oxymoronic, but that’s part of the point: anything labeled luxury communism is going to be hard to ignore.

Pay it forward or suffer the payback. Basic income has been a pretty hot button topic recently. Forbes says it could help our society’s productivity. The Guardian says it’s an absolute necessity. The New Economy calls it a socialist fairytale. I say it’s either basic income or total and utter, scorched earth, death match for drinking water, cannibalistic chaos.

India is looking at a radical idea for reducing poverty: free money for everyone—no strings attached. The Ministry of Finance’s annual survey of the economy, released Tuesday, explores how the country might replace its various welfare programs with a universal basic income, or a uniform stipend paid to every adult and child, poor or rich. Guaranteeing all citizens enough income to cover their basic needs would promote social justice...

The idea of a universal basic income has found growing support in Silicon Valley as robots threaten to radically change the nature of work. Ebay founder Pierre Omidyar is the latest tech bigwig to get behind the concept. His philanthropic investment firm, the Omidyar Network, announced Wednesday that it will give nearly half a billion dollars to a group testing the policy in Kenya.

Finland’s basic income experiment is unworkable, uneconomical and ultimately useless. Plus, it will only encourage some people to work less. That’s not the view of a hard core Thatcherite, but of the country’s biggest trade union. The labour group says the results of the two-year pilot program will fail to sway its opposition to a welfare-policy idea that’s gaining traction among those looking for an alternative in the post-industrial age.

Almost two centuries ago an idea was born with such explanatory power that it created shock waves across all of human society and whose aftershocks we’re still feeling to this day. It’s so simple and yet so powerful, that after all these years, it remains capable of making people question their very faith. The idea of which I speak is that through random mutation and natural selection, every living thing around us was created through millions and even billions of years of what is effectively trial and error, not designed by some intelligent creator. It is the process of evolution through natural selection.

In an interview with Quartz editor-in-chief Kevin Delaney, Bill Gates explains why robots that take jobs away from people shouldn't get a free pass when it comes to income tax.

Ontario is poised to become a testing ground for basic income in 2017 as part of a pilot program. Hugh Segal is the special advisor to the Canadian province and a former senator. He believes a supplemental income of $1,320 a month could provide a viable path to poverty abatement—effectively replacing welfare programs and a system he described as “seriously demeaning” in a paper discussing this basic income pilot project.

Every student learns about Magna Carta, the ancient scroll that enshrined the rights of barons against the arbitrary authority of England’s monarchs. But most have never heard of its arguably more important twin, the Charter of the Forest, issued two years later in 1217. This short but powerful document guaranteed the rights of commoners to common lands, which they could use for farming, grazing, water and wood. It gave official recognition to a right that humans nearly everywhere had long just presupposed: that no one should be debarred from the resources necessary for livelihood.

Participants in the pilot, designed to test if a basic income is a better way to support people living in poverty than the current system, will be randomly chosen by mail in the test communities and begin as early as this summer.