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If AI replaces workers, should it also pay taxes?

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Re: If AI replaces workers, should it also pay taxes?

#261

Post by dv_dt »

the_real_cher wrote: post #251
doener wrote: post #184

No, not the AI. Just the owner of means of production like AI. The fact that capital owners successfully avoid contributing to the financing of our states and social systems is, in my view, one of the fundamental problems of our time.

I'm all for raising taxes is on the rich but the government is extremely fiscally irresponsible. The current interest on our national debt is greater than our military spending. So if you increase taxes some people think it would just be throwing it into the money fire of Washington. There needs to be a lot of changes in D.C.: term limits in congress, citizens united needs to be repealed, erc etc

The government is fiscally irresponsible fundamentally because the rich have successfully lobbied to prevent taxes from being collectible in sufficient quantity to balance the budget. Once you're at the point where the gap cannot politically be closed - "responsible" budgeting is just an exercise in posturing and lobbying exercises.

Re: If AI replaces workers, should it also pay taxes?

#263

Post by phantom784 »

Perhaps some sort of tax that looks at the ratio of a company's profits (or perhaps revenues) to employees, and the tax scales up if that ratio gets too high.

Arguably, a "public good" that companies provide is employment, and as they increase automation, they reduce that "public good" and direct more of their revenue to themselves rather as salary for their employees.

Re: If AI replaces workers, should it also pay taxes?

#264

Post by eek2121 »

phantom784 wrote: post #263

Perhaps some sort of tax that looks at the ratio of a company's profits (or perhaps revenues) to employees, and the tax scales up if that ratio gets too high. Arguably, a "public good" that companies provide is employment, and as they increase automation, they reduce that "public good" and direct more of their revenue to themselves rather as salary for their employees.

The tax should also go to fund a UBI.

Re: If AI replaces workers, should it also pay taxes?

#265

Post by ozmodiar »

epolanski wrote: post #172

Interesting how this argument is only popping now that technology is threatening white collar workers. Automation has been shoving blue collars out of the job market for a century. A single farmer can do with his machinery today what took a dozen of people just 50 years ago. Manufacturing has been super automated long ago. Even in commerce automated checkout has been replacing workers for more than a decade. In any c…

I'm open to the idea that companies need much larger barriers to functioning internationally. Not just because of their ability to pump money overseas, but also because they are often used to blatantly further the security goals of their parent countries (looking at you two USA and China, but everyone able to, seems to do it).

Maybe the current system would've worked if it was built on many more small companies. These monolithic corporations funneling power upward are the death of civilization, and leadership are clearly high on their own farts. Or just want to be on top in a new feudal age.

Re: If AI replaces workers, should it also pay taxes?

#266

Post by Armisael16 »

xzjis wrote: post #233
doener wrote: post #184

No, not the AI. Just the owner of means of production like AI. The fact that capital owners successfully avoid contributing to the financing of our states and social systems is, in my view, one of the fundamental problems of our time.

What's crazy is that productivity per employee just keeps increasing year after year, but successive neoliberal governments continue to lower corporate taxes. They should be doing the exact opposite! Taxes should be raised as productivity increases! AI is just one more tool that gradually increases productivity, among others.

Why should productivity and corporate tax rates be correlated at all, up or down? The link there is not obvious.

Re: If AI replaces workers, should it also pay taxes?

#267

Post by igleria »

The Venn diagram of {people that are ok with paying taxes} and {people that will own the technology that replaces humans that pay taxes from their income} is probably going to show such a small intersection that... UBI or whatever is the flavor of the month will not be feasible.

Re: If AI replaces workers, should it also pay taxes?

#268

Post by seg_lol »

HPsquared wrote: post #258
cubefox wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's dangerous but not pointless. If we get human mass unemployment, someone has to pay for them, and if the companies offering the AI sit in the US, most countries won't be able tax OpenAI & Co directly.

If anything, US AI companies will be eating the lunches of workers from all over the world. It'll be like a service export.

Highly automated and connected business infrastructure will make replacing first world jobs the easiest, but yes as automation spreads, the spigot of job replacement will flow to every corner of the globe.

Re: If AI replaces workers, should it also pay taxes?

#269

Post by classified »

doener wrote: post #184

No, not the AI. Just the owner of means of production like AI. The fact that capital owners successfully avoid contributing to the financing of our states and social systems is, in my view, one of the fundamental problems of our time.

And it makes the governments that have been allowing this more a part of organized crime than of anything else. It's unmitigated corruption.

Re: If AI replaces workers, should it also pay taxes?

#270

Post by gjsman-1000 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #252
the_real_cher wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm all for raising taxes is on the rich but the government is extremely fiscally irresponsible. The current interest on our national debt is greater than our military spending. So if you increase taxes some people think it would just be throwing it into the money fire of Washington. There needs to be a lot of changes in D.C.: term limits in congress, citizens united needs to be repealed, erc etc

> The current interest on our national debt is greater than our military spending. For quite some time, my mortgage interest was larger than my principal. That didn’t make it fiscally irresponsible.

Economists currently cannot find a solution, even with computer assistance, to our economy.

https://www.marketplace.org/story/2025/07/14/how-our-debt-cr...

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