UBI Piloters' Network

Newsletter 27, May, 2026

I Just Launched the AI Pledge for Humanity. Here’s Why. By Scott Santens

AI leaders keep saying UBI is necessary. This pledge asks them to prove it.

In the spirit of common cause, and with eyes open to the Age of AI upon us, we sign this pledge.

We stand at the dawn of abundance. Artificial intelligence is poised to reshape civilisation, ushering us into a future previously imagined only as science fiction. Built on humanity’s collective knowledge and creativity, AI is now unlocking capabilities beyond what once seemed possible.

AI’s capabilities come from all of us. Each of us has contributed in some way to the creation of technology that now emulates us, augments us, and displaces us.

AI was trained on the labor of all; every word written, every image drawn, every song composed, every video published. It leans on discoveries we all funded, born from government research grants, public universities, and the collective achievements of generations past.

Tracking Global Social Policy Responses to the Crisis in the Middle East

Ugo Gentilini, Cristobal Ridao-Cano, Iffath Sharif, Jamele Rigolini, Mohamed Almenfi, Eliana Carranza, Sarah Coll Black, Jose Cuesta, Victor Sulla, Ramy Zeid and Ian Orton

The World Bank has been releasing updates on global social protection responses to the Middle East crisis and high energy prices for the past 5 consecutive weeks (Gentilini et al, 2026). The latest edition documents 202 measures adopted across 79 countries, including 15 emergency cash transfer and basic income programs. The analysis also sheds light on a new and worrisome trend: governments are beginning to resort not just to pandemic-type measures (like remote working or reduced working days), but to fully fledged rationing of energy and food commodities. Recorded in 20 cases, rationing is akin to measures taken during and post-WW-2 times. On top of this, there are clear cracks in fiscal space, with at least 3 cases of countries reducing or freezing public spending. Combined with widespread use of subsidies, these developments point to an elevated use of last-resort measures across a wide range of contexts. In other words, countries' ability to cope with high energy prices is shrinking by the week.

Intra-Gender Trade-Offs in Basic Income Regimes

by Leticia Morales, Jurgen De Wispelaere

The contemporary debate about basic income and gender primarily adopts an external perspective according to which women as a group are pitched against men as a group. This article examines tensions internal to women as a group. We distinguish three types of tensions, each of which leads to a so-called intra-gender trade-off: (1) horizontal tensions trade off different spheres of activities in which women have an interest (e.g., labour market vs. family); (2) vertical tensions pit better-off women against worse-off women (e.g. high educated vs. low educated); (3) temporal tensions trade off impact in one part of the life-cycle against another (e.g. early vs. later in life). The article argues for the importance of acknowledging the internal perspective on gender equality and the challenges this poses for the basic income proposal while also suggesting how it may constructively address avenues for designing and implementing a gender-sensitive basic income.

BIEN’s Treasurer runs the Rio Marathon to raise funds for Toronto BIEN Congress

On 7 June 2026, BIEN Treasurer Lindsay Stirton is running the Rio Marathon to raise money for the BIEN Congress Solidarity Fund.

The Congress Solidarity Fund exists to help low-income participants attend BIEN’s annual Congress by contributing towards essential costs such as travel, accommodation and visa applications.

BIEN’s annual Congress is the major global meeting for people advocating for, researching, debating and putting into practice basic income in all its dimensions, which this year takes place 19–22 August in Toronto, Canada.

Basic income is, at heart, about security, dignity and inclusion. Supporting broader participation in the BIEN Congress is one practical way of advancing those same values. A serious global conversation about economic security should itself be open to people from a wide range of backgrounds and circumstances.

Lindsay is running the Rio Marathon to help make that happen. Every donation, large or small, will support the BIEN Congress Solidarity Fund and help widen access to the most important international gathering devoted to basic income.

Spread the word across our community, and please donate if you can!