As fears grow that artificial intelligence could reshape the labor market, New York Assemblymember and congressional hopeful Alex Bores has unveiled a proactive — and crypto-relevant — policy: an “AI Dividend” that would deliver contingency payments to Americans if AI-driven automation causes significant job loss.
Bores rolled out the proposal on X, framing it as insurance against a future in which AI substantially displaces workers rather than a reaction to today’s economic data. “No one knows exactly how this will play out,” the plan reads, “but what we do know is this: if AI replaces a significant share of human labor, our current economic system is not prepared.”
How it would work
- The program would trigger payments based on objective economic signals tied to automation, such as sustained drops in labor force participation, wage compression in affected sectors, or steep AI-driven productivity gains without corresponding job growth.
- If those triggers are met, direct payments would flow to Americans, complemented by funding for workforce transition programs, education initiatives, and expanded government oversight.
Notably, the framework leaves key operational details unspecified: it does not state how much each person would receive or how often payments would be distributed.
Funding the dividend — crypto angle
Bores proposes several funding mechanisms with clear relevance to the crypto and Web3 world:
- A tax on AI usage measured in “tokens” (a design that could dovetail with how many AI systems meter compute or API calls).
- Equity warrants allowing the federal government to buy into major AI firms if their valuations rise sharply.
- Broader tax reforms to rebalance incentives that currently favor capital investment over wages.
Why now?
The plan’s authors argue that building these tools before AI’s market winners consolidate massive wealth will be easier than trying to claw back value after disruption has already occurred. “Once a small number of companies have accumulated extraordinary wealth and displaced workers across the economy, the political and practical window for creative policy closes,” the document warns.
Context and industry warnings
Bores’ proposal arrives amid high-profile warnings from AI leaders about labor disruption. CEOs including Sam Altman (OpenAI), Dario Amodei (Anthropic), Mustafa Suleyman (Microsoft AI), and Elon Musk (xAI/Tesla) have publicly said AI could automate large swaths of work. As Amodei told CNN last summer, the current AI boom is “bigger, it’s broader, and it’s moving faster than anything has before,” and could outpace workers’ ability to adapt.
Bores’ X post framed the AI Dividend as both relief and incentive: direct payments funded by tax changes that would also “incentivize hiring humans instead of AI.” The Assemblymember’s office did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Why crypto readers should care
The proposal’s token-based tax and other market-linked funding ideas intersect with how AI services are increasingly metered and monetized. If adopted, such mechanisms could influence AI platform economics, tokenized billing models, and the regulatory landscape around tokenized usage charges for AI and cloud services.
The AI Dividend is a forward-looking attempt to fuse economic safety nets with revenue tools tailored to the digital and tokenized economy — though many implementation details remain to be worked out.
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