Published July 11, 2026 | Version v2
Preprint Open

Universal Basic Compute Under a Joule Ceiling: A Priority-Weighted Allocation Rule for Energy-Bounded Artificial Intelligence

Authors/Creators

  • 1. ROR icon Asian Institute of Technology

Description

Universal Basic Compute (UBC), the proposal that every citizen receive a guaranteed allocation of AI computation, has moved from public speculation to policy discussion without acquiring a mechanism. Its advocates specify who should receive compute, everyone, but not how much exists to give, how the guaranteed floor relates to the contested remainder, or who decides the shares. This paper supplies the missing mechanism: a three-layer allocation architecture consisting of an ecological ceiling set by a Joule Standard that bounds total sustainable compute, a universal floor, and a priority-weighted proportional rule that divides the contested remainder among competing sectors under democratically set weights.

The paper states the base rule formally, establishes its core properties as propositions (budget exhaustion, weight-proportional fulfillment, scale invariance), and locates it within the axiomatic literature on claims problems. It then extends the architecture in three ways: an explicit two-tier formulation showing that floor protection concentrates adjustment on the contested tier during supply shocks; an incentive analysis of strategic demand inflation with three remedies, one connecting compute allocation to energy-metered auditing; and a systematic comparison with market pricing, auctions, equal rationing, and peer-review allocation. A worked illustration and a research agenda, including the open problem of axiomatically characterizing the floor-augmented rule, conclude the paper.

This is a supporting research paper for the forthcoming book Citizen 5.0: A New Social Contract for Artificial Intelligence (CRC Press, an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, 2027). It is an independent scholarly article and is not sponsored, endorsed, or reviewed by the Publisher.

Version 2 (July 2026) adds engagement with E. Mostaque's Universal Access to Intelligence proposal (The Last Economy, 2025), the most prominent published citizen-level compute entitlement, which specifies the entitlement without the allocation mechanism this paper supplies.

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Additional details

Related works

Is supplement to
Preprint: 10.2139/ssrn.6983540 (DOI)
Preprint: 10.2139/ssrn.6983401 (DOI)

Dates

Copyrighted
2026-07-05

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