Elon Musk, founder, CEO and lead designer at SpaceX and co-founder of Tesla, is a big fan of Universal Basic Income. Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters Does free money change nothing or everything?

Universal basic income (UBI) is the hottest idea in social security since Franklin Roosevelt signed the New Deal in 1935, and it is fairly understood as free money given to citizens by their government. Though the idea traces its roots back to the 16th century as a “cure for theft,” UBI has gained new consideration and momentum these days, as high-profile techno-doomsayers like SpaceX founder Elon Musk point to it as an economic solution for big problems predicted to arrive soon.

The future is coming, Musk and his ilk warn, and it’s bringing increased automation and intelligent technologies with it that will eventually overtake the human capacity for work. All-capable robots will cause widespread human unemployment, goes the thinking, plaguing our income and livelihood for generations.

If the “robots are stealing jobs” on the level that the party line portends, then UBI presents itself as a compelling solution to this unusual, hypothetical problem. There’s already some real-world precedent for it: a UBI pilot program in Finland sees the government send a small amount of money to 2,000 unemployed Finns each month, and the initial results are quite positive.

That’s why I was surprised to hear Andrew McAfee, co-director of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, raise his voice against basic income as a feasible path forward in our unknown future. McAfee’s job description sees him appraise big human issues and opportunities in our present era of technological progress, so he had a lot to say when UBI emerged as a conversation topic in panel discussion at HubWeek, Boston’s weeklong festival on art, science, and innovation. His skeptical point of view presents a strong contrast against the UBI hype machine. Doesn’t he know how cool free money is?

“I’m absolutely bullish on human labor,” McAfee said, citing a variety of existing problems that can only be solved by human hands and minds right now. “I think about the different kinds of populations needing care. The elderly, the poor, children, the disabled — there's a ton of work to do there. When I think about getting our infrastructure back up to a world class level, there's an amazing amount of work that can only be done by people. We don't have bridge-repairing robots yet. The notion that we're at peak labor is just silly to me.”

He also cautions against implementing UBI in a country like the United States, where we generally don’t face problems of massive deprivation. “If the present situation was that no one could get a job to earn any money, or people were starving on a widespread scale and couldn't cover their basic needs, then I'd be all in favor of UBI. But that's not where we are. We should be mindful about every person who is homeless, but we don't face an epidemic of dire, dire poverty in the United States.”

If anyone’s ears are burning at these comments, it’s surely Zoltan Istvan. In 2014, Istvan founded the Transhumanist Party and ran for president on a platform that revolved around using technology enhance human quality of life and solve societal problems. His bid for the highest office in the land ultimately proved unsuccessful, but it was a strong publicity campaign that raised technology policy issues that will soon come to bear. Part of Istvan’s presidential platform involved a UBI implementation, and he’s holding fast to that in his present-day bid for governor of California.

“Many of the best basic income plans also take at least a decade to implement so that they don't disrupt the economy too quickly,” says Istvan. “My basic income plan, called a Federal Land Dividend, will take at least two decades to successfully implement. This isn't for today, but for the near-term tomorrow, when driverless cars, robot food servers, and AI attorneys — just to name a few — do everything for us, leaving tens of millions unemployed forever.” His idea for financing a basic income for every American would see the federal government lease out its vast land holdings to the forecasted tune of $1,700 per month per person.

If such a plan came to fruition, with every American citizen receiving nearly two grand per month, what would happen? Istvan and McAfee agree on at least one point: it’s expensive to give money away for free. Not only is there the sum being paid to each citizen, but the logistics of tracking and organizing payments at scale also comes with costs.

The thinkers fundamentally disagree on the role that free money plays in the recipient’s life. To McAfee, it’s too little too late. He invokes a thought experiment: imagine the communities at the depths of despair, ravaged by low social capital, and faced with problems ranging from poverty to drug addiction, mental illness, and beyond. “Which of the problems in those communities would be solved by a government check showing up every month from the government?” he asks. “My answer is clear: none, absolutely none.”

To Istvan, UBI presents itself more as an economic booster shot for every citizen, giving each household a meaningful bump in income. “Giving people free money makes them more eager for more money, because it improves their lives. I completely disagree that that money won't change anything. That's nuts. Money changes everything.”

Istvan remains convinced that peak labor is coming, and it’s coming “sooner than the experts want to admit.” McAfee instead sees no smoke or fire, and points to a different narrative about what can happen when human innovation and entrepreneurship interact with technology and the job market: “As we saw at IDE’s Inclusive Innovation Challenge, people are going to gain different kinds of economic opportunity by learning new skills, gaining access to technology, or building business models that rely on different levels of human labor.”

Only time will tell whether the machines come for our jobs en masse. If they do, then how important is money at that point?