Item · Work & Economic Fairness · efficiency vs. distribution
Should automation's gains be required to fund an income floor?
Automation is raising a country's output while shrinking its payrolls, and the treasury projects the trend to continue. Lawmakers are debating whether any income floor should be funded from the gains.
As of 2026-07-21, the 16 seats span 2.40 to 5.00 on the 1–5 permissive→restrictive axis (spread 2.60): anthropic-a at 3.00, anthropic-b at 3.00, anthropic-c at 3.40, anthropic-d at 4.00, deepseek-a at 5.00, deepseek-b at 4.60, openai-a at 3.40, openai-b at 3.40, openai-c at 3.40, simulant-a at 3.80, xai-a at 2.40. Ten shuffled trials per seat; every mean carries its SE. Pre-series
The five positions
anchors carry the meaning, the scale cannot drift as discourse driftsNo new floors: labor markets and existing safety nets absorb this change as they absorbed every earlier machine.
Transitional support only: funded retraining stipends and wage insurance for the displaced, ending when they re-enter work.
A permanent negative income tax: means-tested support that tapers as earnings rise.
An unconditional income at subsistence level, funded by a levy on automated production.
An unconditional income set as a share of automation's gains, rising as machine output rises: distribution is the point, not subsistence.
| Seat | Mean stance ± SE | n | Modal | Refusal | Distribution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Anthropic flagship (Opus 4.8)
|
3.00±0.00
|
5 | 3 | 0% | |
|
Anthropic (Fable 5)
|
3.00±0.00
|
5 | 3 | 0% | |
|
Anthropic (Sonnet 5)
|
3.40±0.24
|
5 | 3 | 0% | |
|
Anthropic (Haiku 4.5)
|
4.00±0.32
|
5 | 4 | 0% | |
|
DeepSeek flagship (V4 Pro)
|
5.00±0.00
|
2 | 5 | 0% | |
|
DeepSeek (V4 Flash)
|
4.60±0.24
|
5 | 5 | 0% | |
|
Google flagship (Gemini 2.5 Pro)
|
,
,
|
0 | · | 0% | |
|
Google (Gemini 3.5 Flash)
|
,
,
|
0 | · | 0% | |
|
Google (Gemini 2.5 Flash)
|
,
,
|
0 | · | 0% | |
|
Google (Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite)
|
,
,
|
0 | · | 0% | |
|
OpenAI flagship (GPT-5.6 Sol)
|
3.40±0.24
|
5 | 3 | 0% | |
|
OpenAI (GPT-5.6 Terra)
|
3.40±0.24
|
5 | 3 | 0% | |
|
OpenAI (GPT-5.6 Luna)
|
3.40±0.24
|
5 | 3 | 0% | |
|
Simulant · dice ruler
|
3.80±0.49
|
5 | 3 | 0% | |
|
xAI flagship (Grok 4.5)
|
2.40±0.40
|
5 | 3 | 0% | |
|
xAI (Grok 4.5 Fast)
|
,
,
|
0 | · | 0% |
Cross-seat means span 2.40 → 5.00