While it's noble to give away $30M, it won't necessarily give strong support for universal basic income. In order to have an effective experiment, you need to also tax those people $30M and redistribute it. That's missing from their checklist.

Of course free money is better than no free money! That's all this will prove and few will debate that. The real questions are: 1) is it worth the cost, and 2) is it better than alternatives?

I would personally donate to a large-scale A/B experiment where you give one group cash and the other group food, housing and education worth an equal amount and see which works better.

I worry that the recipients are going to be better off (because you just gave them $30M) and then everyone is going to want to implement a huge, risky (and fundamentally different) program in the US.

Note to avoid excessive downvotes: I like the idea of UBI in theory and I will support it one day but I think we're not there yet. I think we need more automation and more overall wealth before it makes economic sense - before benefits > costs.