I think one of the grave fallacies embraced by one of the companies in this article is that "technology destroys jobs" as if there are no others. Technology always creates new jobs as it phases out others - usually by replacing low-skilled jobs with higher-skilled ones. I note, however, that one reason technology is creating job replacement is because of minimum wage and mandatory benefits laws: technology isn't cheap. There is and always will be a break-even point for the implementation of a given technology and artificially pushing up wages makes it much more likely that that breakpoint gets hit.

The problem with minimum basic incomes are that they encourage people to do nothing AND they must first take that money from someone else who earned it.

They can afford to pay for that, and are welcome to...the rest of us can't and many that could...have much better places to put their hard earned money.

But the whole idea will fail, has failed; in countries that have tried it and besides, it's insulting to conscious human beings not to mention hazardous to their mental/ physical health and well being.

Not that I think it will work, but it could be that this is one of many test programs being conducted because the elitists involved believe that robotics will put many out of work in the near future. The elite will do whatever it takes to prevent a revolution against the existing statist power structure that supports elite monopolists and statist looters. They pretend they are doing out for the greater good when it is only for their personal power and to eliminate any competition from the obviously lesser beings.

Give me liberty or give me equality.
Can’t have both.

Constantly trying to dictate equality is the death of liberty.

The entire premise of the UBI is morally reprehensible. It is disgusting.
It would fully institutionalize state dependency.
It would act as a parasitic cancer -- leaching money from the producers and funneling it to the moochers -- all while the administrators and bureaucrats continue to grow large as the brokers of such a scheme.
The UBI has also been called the Unconditional Basic Income. Everything is conditional. Causes have their Effects and Effects have their Causes. Their relationship is conditional. This is reality. The UBI would violate the basic fabric of reality.
This scheme would necessarily reduce the incentive to work as the income flows unconditionally.
This would reduce human beings to the likes of dogs ...

Here is what makes me sick . . . there are already millions of people, in the United States, that would be OK with the UBI. Consider the folks that like to use the phrase "Everybody Pays Taxes" -- as if to imply, that their paying of property taxes and sales taxes makes them a part of the U.S. Economy -- when, in fact, they are receiving 10x what they are paying, in terms of their SSDI (Social Security Disability Insurance) and SSI (Social Security Insurance) -- government checks -- essentially payments for not working. There are an obscene number of people on the welfare dole who are fully capable of working (11 million adults on SSDI with $200 billion in annual payments) but choose not to work. Instead, they get government checks and feel that they are entitled to the payments. In reality, they paid in a fraction of what they are receiving. I have also found that these government -endorsing statists are conveniently "bad at math."

I think universal basic income is great, providing only the people who support it are willing to give up THEIR income to fund it.

Its a stupid idea that is refutable by nothing more than common sense. Human Nature doesnt work like they are saying.

Give someone money, and they just work LESS by the amount of money they get.

What can be more proof of the looter mentality.

Well, I didn't really understand the article. Are the Combinators local governments? Or are they simply parts of a company?
I think the whole ideal of universal basic income stinks. I have had some hard times, but what I want is a job. And not some made-up job that somebody invented just to give me money and make it look like I was earning it. I mean a job where I work for an employer, and he needs the work done, and I give him the labor in exchange for the money--on terms agreed to between the employer and me.

Why contribute to the work force if a substantive income can be obtained by being non-productive?Unless your particular job is so much fun that you'd be willing to pay in order to work at it, It appears to me National productivity would grind to a halt putting us into 3rd world status virtually overnight.

This whole thing is great, coming from a state that has been suffering from financial difficulties for decades.