Energy and Wealth Podcast
Inside the OASIS Circuit: Testing the Future of the AI Economy
In this episode of Energy & Wealth, Audrey Panhorst sits down with Dr. James W. Bunger and Meashia Daniels to explore the OASIS circuit—the economic engine at the heart of the National AI Economy Resilience Model (NAIERM). As artificial intelligence expands productive capacity while disrupting traditional employment and income, a critical question emerges: Who will finance the demand needed to keep the economy functioning? Jim explains how the OASIS circuit is designed to recirculate a portion of AI-generated value back into the broader economy through Basic Economic Liquidity, creating a sustainable floor for participation, consumption, and human flourishing. The conversation also introduces the new NAIERM VIP Simulator, an interactive research tool that allows users to test the model’s assumptions, adjust key economic variables, and examine how changes in AI productivity, machine capital, household income, taxation, and circulation rates could affect the economy over time. Audrey, Jim, and Meashia discuss what the simulator reveals, why the model must continue evolving alongside the technology, and where its greatest tensions still remain—including the challenge of keeping the demand circuit strong enough as machine capital grows. Rather than presenting NAIERM as a finished answer, the episode invites researchers, policymakers, industry leaders, and the public to explore the framework, challenge its assumptions, and help improve the model. This is a conversation about more than automation or income support. It is about redesigning economic participation for an era in which machines may perform an increasing share of productive work—and ensuring that technological abundance translates into broad human prosperity. Explore the research. Challenge the model. Help build an economy in which everyone retains a stake in the machine.
