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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?

#31

Post by harimau777 »

bofadeez wrote: post #18
smallmancontrov wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> productive According to the economic notion of value, which is unique among definitions of "value" in being wealth-weighted, enshrining "mega gainz in brokerage accounts" as the ultimate social good while shrugging its shoulders at the plight of the ahem low-weight individual.

Value isn’t something society measures or adds up by people’s bank balances; it’s just how much each individual personally wants something, and markets show this only through voluntary choices, not by declaring rich people’s gains more important than poor people’s lives.

Except that it does declare rich people's gains more important than poor people's lives.

The purpose of a system is what it does.

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

#32

Post by harimau777 »

bofadeez wrote: post #2

No obviously not. Lots of machines replace workers. Why would taking scarce resources away from productive businesses and allocating to unproductive things be good for anyone other than government bureaucrats?

It would benefit the people you are calling "unproductive things". That's basically the point.

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

#35

Post by sandworm101 »

jsemrau wrote: post #7

Wouldn't higher productivity also lead to higher profits? Which then should be taxed accordingly?

No. Corporate profits, especially when forwarded to shareholders, are very difficult to tax. Several companies that pay virtually zero income tax (apple, google, amazon) also now sit on piles of cash, piles so big they honestly do not know what to do with it. Thats where all the AI cash is comming from. They need somewhere to spend thier post-covid winnings.

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

#38

Post by harimau777 »

WillAdams wrote: post #20
bofadeez wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't need taxes to pay a UBI. If "every country" is in debt, who owns the debt exactly? ... (it's not real debt)

The problem with socialism, is eventually, one runs out of other people's money. For an example of what unlimited borrowing and money printing results in, look up Germany in 1921--1923

Sure, but then we at least don't have the ultra wealthy coming up with ways to make everyone elses lives worse.

If we took Elon Musk's money away and simply burnt it, that would still be a net win for society as a whole.

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

#40

Post by the-mitr »

BurningFrog wrote: post #16
varenc wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If full AGI dreams are achieved and 80% of jobs disappear, leading to mass unemployment, then we need to do something to support the huge numbers of people that no longer have any income. Taxes to support a UBI program seem one solution. Or maybe the labor market can shift to find opportunities for humans that AI can't replace and we'd avoid the mass unemployment. But feels like we're a long way from that right now.

We have "disappeared" ~97% of jobs since the Industrial Revolution started, and no increased unemployment has materialized. Until you understand how something that counter intuitive happened, you should not speculate on how AI replacing current jobs will play out!

Can you give a source for the 97% claim?
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