Oracle's Larry Ellison Predicts AI Will Usher in Universal Income and Global Wealth

Larry Ellison, the executive chairman and chief technology officer of Oracle, stated on Tuesday that the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence will ultimately lead to universal income and a general increase in wealth for everyone. Speaking at the Oracle AI World event in Las Vegas, Ellison highlighted the increasing integration of robots across various industries, which he believes will significantly boost productivity. "We decided to get better tools, and we're going to build better systems ... The tools make people much better, makes us much more productive," he remarked.

Ellison pointed to examples like robotic surgeons and autopilot systems, suggesting that while AI may displace some jobs, it will also drive down costs. He proposed a shift in taxation from human labor to a value-added tax (VAT) on goods and services produced by AI and robots. "A lot of companies have value-added tax. So when the robots add value, all the value that the robots add is cash, and we can have universal product income," he explained. He anticipates this transition will take over a decade, but ultimately, robots will handle more undesirable tasks while generating value.

"We are on track [to get] healthier and wealthier because of AI - and with the right taxation systems and the right computer systems - all of that is critical," Ellison added. Despite these optimistic projections, the concept of AI-generated universal income has not achieved widespread consensus. A May report from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) questioned the viability of government-funded universal basic income as a solution to AI's impact on the labor market. The UN body disputed claims by tech leaders that AI will cause catastrophic labor market disruption and that its productivity gains would make such income transfers non-inflationary, calling these assertions "empirically weak." The ILO report emphasized that for universal basic income to be effective, AI must also expand supply in sectors where people would spend their new income, a condition it found not supported by current productivity gains. "The state can increase the number printed on every cheque. Whether the goods and services that determine real welfare, housing, health, quality food, care, are available in sufficient quantity at stable prices depends on supply-side conditions that AI improves only partially and unevenly," the report concluded.

Ellison also foresaw a profound impact of AI on healthcare, predicting that "most cancers will be gone in five years, and certainly 10 years." He believes that AI-driven advancements in drug discovery and development, including an increase in clinical trials and faster drug creation, will make cures accessible to all, not just the wealthy. "We think drug discovery is going to through a golden age. But that's only half the problem. You get the drugs. You next have to get the drugs where you distribute them in such volume that the prices come down," he stated. Furthermore, AI innovations are enabling earlier diagnoses, such as AI-enabled metagenomic tests for early sepsis detection and DNA tests for early cancer detection, which can also help distinguish false positives. Ellison noted that as the quality of care improves globally, "the overall cost per patient goes down dramatically."