With robots promising to eliminate millions of human jobs by 2030, the idea of Universal Income is suddenly supercharged. In a Sustainable Development world, the only logical choice for such a 'free' income will be energy. Such 'energy credits' will likely expire at the end of a month with no roll-over into the next period. Watch for this to develop.

Universal basic income—the proposal that everyone be paid a flat wage by the government, regardless of their economic status—is getting lots of attention these days thanks to the looming threat of mass job losses to automation. This week, start-up incubator Y Combinator announced plans for a pilot program, in which it'll give basic income to a test set of people in Oakland to see how it goes. Also this week a small collective in San Francisco raffled a one-year basic income package of $1,250 per month to a single winner, a man in Florida.

With Silicon Valley at the forefront of developing the automated technologies poised to take a chunk out of the workforce, it's not surprising that it's the first place in the U.S. doing basic income trials. Though the ultimate plan would be to have governments doling out basic incomes, these trial programs are being run by private groups who hope to prove the feasibility of free money for no work.