‘Pathetic’: Aussie experts sound alarm as Trump accounts touted as weapon against AI jobs apocalypseA new move from Donald Trump could be the ultimate weapon against the AI jobs takeover, but Aussie experts say it’s a dangerous trap.Ben Graham@bengrahamjourno7 min readJuly 14, 2026 - 1:57PMAmid threats of a looming AI jobs apocalypse, those calling for a universal basic income have found an unlikely source of inspiration, Donald Trump.While the idea of giving huge sums of cash to the unemployed uprooted by an economic revolution may sound like a left-wing idea, the US president’s latest project to give young Americans a headstart in life provides a mechanism that could be useful preparation in the event of a jobs takeover.Last week the Trump administration launched a new savings scheme aimed at encouraging investing among American children — Trump Accounts — marked with a historic ringing of the Wall Street opening bell in the Oval Office.The savings accounts are now available to all US children under the age of 18, with babies born between 2025 and 2028 qualifying for a $1000 contribution to kickstart savings.Families, friends and employers can top up $5000 per year per child, who can access the funds when they turn 18. By law, the money must be invested in a low-cost index fund designed for long-term growth.The design means that ultra-rich tech billionaires could share their riches among the general population. Others you may likenewsnewsUS President Donald Trump rings the opening bell for the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and Nasdaq during the launch of Trump investment accounts in the Oval Office. Picture: Mandel NGAN / AFPCentrist publication The Economist — which is often highly critical of Mr Trump — praised the scheme in a column, saying it could come in very handy if millions lose their jobs to AI.In the event of that happening, it argued AI billionaires — who would become vastly richer while everyday citizens lose their jobs — would have a way of funnelling some of their wealth to citizens to prevent a major backlash and social unrest.“The experiment is particularly useful preparation for the turmoil that the spread of AI may bring. The more radical forecasts for AI’s economic effects involve vast returns for capital-holders and a tough time for workers,” the column states.“Under that scenario, a direct and highly visible public stake in the technology might be necessary to forestall runaway inequality and political instability.“Instead of the government running the show of managing, say, the 5 per cent of OpenAI that Sam Altman has suggested handing over, shares could be passed along to citizens via Trump-like accounts. Even if AI does not make capital eclipse labour, the mechanism could encourage a healthy new form of philanthropy in which some billionaires voluntarily pass on parts of their fortunes to all Americans.”OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has suggested giving some of his wealth away if AI kills everyone’s jobs. Picture: Jason Redmond / AFP‘Very bad for society’: Aussie experts on whether it could work here Two leading Australian experts on AI and universal basic income told news.com.au they are highly sceptical of how Mr Trump’s scheme would work in reality and that a direct American copy-paste would not fly down under.Economist Robert Carling, a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies said Trump accounts “are very particular to the Trump administration”, and we don’t have a need for something similar in Australia.“I don’t really think it needs to be replicated here because we have a superannuation system which does it in another form,” he said. “It’s a very Trumpy thing and doesn’t really have a parallel here.”While he agreed it is “always desirable for people to have a stake in capitalism other than their own labour contribution,” he argued Australia already achieves this through housing and compulsory super.He warned that using these accounts as a backdoor vehicle for a tech-funded universal basic income would be a disaster for society.“We shouldn’t give up on the idea that there will be other jobs if there is a large-scale shedding of jobs because of AI,” he said. Robert Carling is against universal basic income. Picture: Supplied“It would not be desirable to have some scheme that enables people to give up on work, demotivates them, or takes away the incentive to look for other work and re-skill. It’s very bad for society to have large numbers of people sitting around at home doing nothing. I am certainly against universal basic income as a concept.”He also warned that relying on the whims of Silicon Valley to willingly fund these accounts is naive.“Rather than leave it to individual billionaires, trillionaires, or individual companies to decide what to do — which is a rather haphazard approach — we don’t want President Trump or his successors just applying pressure on individuals to hand money over for these investment accounts,” he said. “That just smacks of crony capitalism. It wouldn’t work if it was just voluntary. Companies or individuals could suddenly change their minds, or the individual dies. It would have to be more structured than voluntary contributions.”However, he suggested there may be another way for Australia to capture AI wealth. If tech giants end up creating permanent, bulletproof monopolies, he said the tax man might have to step in with a uniquely Australian solution.“Is there a role for some additional tax like there is on mining royalties?” he said. “If we did that, the money could be spent on these investment accounts. In the Australian system, it could supplement superannuation accounts, or it could just be some other kind of investment account where people could draw the income from it immediately without waiting until they retire.”‘Pathetic’: Five per cent offer from billionaires blastedProfessor Toby Walsh, an AI expert at UNSW, agreed that billionaire-led accounts are a distraction, saying the offer from Mr Altman to give 5 per cent of profits back is “pathetic” given how much money AI companies are worth.Unlike Mr Carling, he thinks a universal basic income is a good idea that might be inevitable — and we shouldn’t be waiting for corporate charity to fund it.“I don’t think we should be relying on the philanthropy of billionaires,” Prof Walsh said. “I think this is why we have governments. Governments collect taxes and redistribute them to ensure that equity in society doesn’t get too imbalances. That’s important for the cohesion of our society, the social contract that we have with our governments. “I don’t think we should be relying on billionaires to do the right thing, because often they don’t do the right thing. If they were offering 50 per cent of the company or something, then you might consider it. But if you keep 95 per cent of the profits, you only offer 5 per cent.”He said the solution does not require inventing complex new investment schemes. Instead he suggested fixing a broken corporate tax system that allows the world’s most powerful companies to treat tax as an optional extra.Professor Toby Walsh thinks universal basic income could be needed.“Let’s not forget, we do have really well-known methods of redistributing wealth. It’s called taxation,” he said. “I still don’t understand why it is that the tech companies pay effective tax rates well beneath almost every other corporation. They engineer their tax affairs, intellectual property, and the jurisdictions in which they decide to pay minimal taxes.“You look at the ‘Big Seven’ tech giants, they pay under 10 per cent in effective tax rates. Whereas the Commonwealth Bank pays over 20 per cent, and you and I pay 30-something per cent. They can actually afford to pay. Most of them have money sitting in cash counters. They’re buying back their shares, which is a lazy thing to do if you’ve got excess money.”He hit back at conservative warnings that handing people cash makes them lazy, pointing to Australia’s own recent history.“People often say universal basic income is a really wild, radical idea, forgetting that we’ve had it. During Covid, we had this thing called JobKeeper and JobSeeker, that paid people money to stay home. That’s universal basic income,” he said.“The argument is put up (that it removes the incentive to work), but I’m not sure that we actually have the scientific evidence that it holds. The evidence we have from Covid was quite the opposite. “Anxiety levels and mental health improved significantly in Australia and secondly, lots of people used that money to re-skill themselves, to start new businesses. They didn’t actually sit around and just drink beer and play video games.”He pointed to global precedents, like a massive trial in Wales where youth transitioning out of foster care are given income, which has dramatically reduced homelessness and crime.And while current economic figures showed only a “modest” softening in AI-exposed roles like marketing and telesales, Prof Walsh warned that waiting for the data to worsen before acting is a trap.“By the time that we’re measuring the impact, it’s too late. People have lost their jobs. They needed new skills yesterday,” he said. “We’ve got to start adapting now.”More CoverageFurious town blocks mega data centre hubBen GrahamOne city landlord warns you shouldn’t buy inMary MadiganHe said data centres in Australia had become the latest flashpoint in the human fightback against AI — and that it was a “reflection of people’s real and justified fears” about the technology.“The problem is that people feel that AI is being done to them,” he said. “They don’t have much choice or agency. We need to fix that. We need to make sure that people feel that they do have some agency, they have some choice. “The irony is, in China, they’ve actually passed a law which says that you can’t lay off people because of AI. You have to come up with some other reason if you’ve got to lay people off. It can’t be AI.”Read related topics:Donald TrumpJoin the conversationAdd your comment to this storyTo join the conversation, please log in. Don't have an account? 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