US Nonprofits Launch 'AI Dividend' Basic Income Plan to Support Workers Displaced by AI

US nonprofits AI Commons Project and What We Will have launched the 'AI Dividend' basic income plan to help groups who lost jobs or saw sharp income drops due to AI popularization. The project has raised an initial $300,000 and will first support 25 to 50 workers, giving each $1000 per month for a year.

Senior software engineer Kaitlin Cort notes that AI has a significant impact on entry-level programming fields—after companies introduced AI coding assistants like Microsoft Copilot and Anthropic Claude, demand for entry-level positions almost dried up. Even if students find jobs, their work often becomes low-value repetitive tasks like proofreading AI-generated code snippets instead of real engineering development.

The project plans to distribute $3 million in 2026, but funding sources are uncertain; organizers hope to lobby profitable AI companies for donations. While supported by scholars like Geoffrey Hinton, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warns that simply giving cash may not solve the social psychological issues and deep structural imbalances caused by unemployment.