Automation Impact Dividend (AID) - Draft Proposal

Preamble: The AID Imperative.

Automation is accelerating. AI, robotics, and software are lifting productivity everywhere. That's genuinely good news. But the transition has sharp edges. Income swings. Disrupted careers. Deep anxiety in communities that lose roles faster than new ones appear. The IMF says almost 40% of global employment is exposed to AI. In advanced economies it could be as high as 60%. Goldman Sachs projects that AI might lift corporate profits by 30% or more over the next ten years. At the same time, roughly 18% of existing jobs face a high probability of being automated. That's about 300 million full‑time‑equivalent positions exposed globally.

This isn't a sudden cliff. It's a structural shift. The challenge is to navigate it fairly, and democratically. The goal of AID is simple. Keep society stable while innovation scales. Share a small slice of automation‑linked gains with the people most affected. The defining innovation is a tripartite distribution model. Business, government, and people each hold a genuine stake. No single institution can control the flow of support. That makes the system anti‑fragile. It gets stronger under stress.

We've built three defining features right into the core of AID. The levy pool becomes a sovereign wealth‑style endowment that compounds forever. Every citizen gets baby bonds and automatic asset accounts from birth. And governance is pushed to the local level, with regional Trusts instead of one distant global body. These aren't extras. They're the engine that turns a safety net into a wealth‑building machine.

Core Principles of AID Design

1. Eligibility and Targeting

• AID targets meaningful displacement linked to automation. Job loss, major hours reduction, sustained wage decline. Not everyone. Not blanket eligibility.
• Uses verifiable signals like tax records and accredited checks. Fair, auditable, hard to game.
• Sector‑level triggers activate automatic enrolment when a NACE‑classified sector loses more than 15% of its workforce in 12 months. The system scales at the speed of disruption, not bureaucracy.
• Prioritises low‑ and middle‑income households. Senior executives and major capital owners are excluded from key tiers.
• Low friction. Simple claims flow, privacy‑first data handling, a clear appeals process. It rides on existing tax‑credit rails and unemployment‑insurance IT infrastructure.

2. Payment Structure

• Monthly dividend of $3,000 (or local equivalent). Empirically anchored to America's no‑frills cost of living. That's MIT Living Wage Calculator plus BLS data. It's inflation‑indexed annually, so purchasing power stays solid.
• Scaled by severity. Full displacement gets the full amount. Partial income loss gets less. Simpler than it sounds.
• Duration is typically 5 to 10 years per recipient. There's a re‑entry bonus. When a worker finds new employment they keep 50% of their remaining entitlement as a lump sum. That turns a cliff into a springboard.
• Companion policy: a shortened 32‑hour workweek at full pay. Proven productive in Iceland, UK trials, and Microsoft Japan. Employment identity stays alive. People keep structure and purpose. AID covers the gap.
• Delivered through low‑cost rails - direct deposit, with other options where they improve access and cut fees.

3. Distribution Mechanism

• Direct transfers through secure digital payment rails. Independent audits back them up.
• Real "virtual shareholder" units. Displaced workers receive transferable dividend units in an independently held AID Trust. When certificated firms report automation windfall profits, the units pay out. This is a property right, not a handout.
• Clear accountability. Published rules, auditable decisions, a meaningful appeals process.
• No restrictions on use. Dignity and flexibility matter when your world has just been reshaped.

4. Funding and Accountability - The Endowment Engine

• Participating firms contribute a share of realised automation‑linked gains. A dynamic profit‑threshold trigger makes sure firms only contribute once their audited AI/automation EBIT uplift exceeds 5% for two consecutive quarters. That protects companies still investing, while they build toward a win.
• The contribution share is auto‑offset against Corporation Tax. It's a reallocation, not an extra tax.
• AID contributions flow into a sovereign wealth‑style endowment, managed by each regional Trust. The endowment invests globally in diversified assets. It compounds. Dividends are paid from the returns, not from the corpus. This means the fund never runs dry. It grows over time, supporting one generation after another.
• Firms that meet the standard earn the "Automation‑Responsibility" label. A public scoring dashboard shows their contribution volume, profit‑to‑levy ratio, and worker‑voice score. Consumers and B2B buyers reward labelled firms. Market pressure reinforces democratic accountability.
• Universal Transition Account for every citizen. At birth, every child receives a baby bond seeded by the AID endowment. That bond grows over a lifetime, invested alongside the Trust's main pool. At adulthood, they can use it for education, training, starting a business, or a first home. The account also gets topped up with small annual contributions from the levy. It becomes an automatic asset account, a nest egg that builds quietly whether a person is displaced or not.
• Every adult also receives one non‑transferable voting share in their regional AID Trust. That's the Democracy Dividend. An equal governance voice for everyone.

Democratic Architecture: Regional Trusts and Subsidiarity

AID isn't governed from one global headquarters. Power flows to the lowest effective level. We'll have a network of regional AID Trusts - North America, Europe, and others - each with its own tri‑chamber board. Citizen representatives, labour delegates, and business seats. Major decisions require supermajority consent across the three chambers. No single bloc can rewrite the rules.

Regional Trusts operate under a shared multi‑lateral treaty. That treaty locks in the core principles - profit‑threshold funding, the 7% cap, inflation indexing, baby bonds, and citizen voting rights. A transnational Arbitration Panel can rule on breaches by any signatory government. Dividend units and baby bond accounts are portable across borders. You move, your stake moves with you.

Rotating citizen audit juries add another layer. Every two years, a random panel of citizens reviews a sample of displacement decisions and levy assessments. They publish findings straight to the public dashboard and to parliamentary oversight committees. Council member terms are staggered and sunsetted. No entrenched class can form.

Workplace Democracy: Co‑Determination on Automation

Firms above the profit‑threshold trigger must set up works councils or automation‑impact committees. Elected employee representatives sit on them. They review planned AI deployments, negotiate retraining and internal redeployment before anyone triggers a claim, and publish an annual Automation Impact Statement. That statement feeds into the firm's label score and the public dashboard. This keeps civic muscle alive inside the workplace. People aren't just passive recipients of a dividend. They have a voice in how automation arrives.

Why this matters now?

AI is moving from novelty to infrastructure. The OECD confirms accelerating adoption by firms and widespread use by individuals. The ILO's latest work on generative AI stresses that jobs will be transformed rather than instantly removed. Transition design matters enormously. Income stability matters. Skills matter. And democratic voice matters most of all.

Key points (quick reading)

• AID is targeted, auditable, time‑limited - a bridge, not a dependency.
• The levy pool is a permanent endowment. It compounds, so support strengthens over generations.
• Every child is born with a baby bond and an automatic asset account. Capital ownership starts at birth.
• Governance is pushed to regional Trusts. Citizens elect representatives. No distant power centre can capture it.
• Firms contribute only when automation genuinely lifts profits. The trigger is dynamic, fair, and data‑driven.
• Workplace co‑determination ensures automation is managed with workers, not done to them.
• A multi‑lateral treaty locks the core principles. Dividend units and accounts are portable across borders.
• The reference payment is $3,000/month, empirically anchored and inflation‑indexed.