$500 of free taxpayer money each month — a solution or a problem?

Silicon Valley start-ups believe they have a solution for people who fear jobs will be lost to machines as automation becomes more prevalent.

Beginning this fall in a city just 80 miles east of Silicon Valley, tech giants are kickstarting the nation’s first universal basic income experiment, giving away $500 a month to residents of Stockton, Calif., with no strings attached. In the city once known as the nation’s foreclosure capital, Facebook co-founder Charles Hughes will be paying 100 residents through his organization, the Economic Security Project, to support the research and development of UBI around the country.