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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?

#401

Post by jlawson »

immibis wrote: post #372
TuringNYC wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not arguing for taxing AI (or tractors) -- but...if we made the wrong decision 100yrs ago, should we make the wrong decision again? It is worth debating.

The wrong decision wasn't using productivity enhancers - it was building a society around the idea that everyone MUST have a job, even in the presence of substantial productivity enhancers which massively decrease the number of jobs. We've scraped by so far... so far.

The problem is that for the vast majority of people to be psychologically healthy they must have a job. This isn't a societal decision, it's a reality about how humans are.

The alternative is like feeding an animal instead of letting it live the lifestyle it's adapted for. That helps it in the moment but over time its capacities atrophy and it ends up weakened, twisted and harmed with nothing to spend its natural instincts on.

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

#402

Post by AndrewKemendo »

zwnow wrote: post #393
renewiltord wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basic income doesn’t do anything. We already have food stamps and so on. The largest sector of US federal spending is health and social welfare. We’d have to end pretty much all those programs to run a minuscule basic income.

Whats the alternative? Kill off all humans replaced by AI unable to do something else for a living? Its sad enough that there are food stamps given the amount of food that regularly ends up in a dumpster on a daily basis. Humans come first, not machinery.

Nobody needs to kill anyone, people will just stop having kids which is what’s happening

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

#403

Post by CyanLite2 »

ashleyn wrote: post #366
vjk800 wrote: post #344

Tractors largely replaced human labour in farming about a hundred years ago. Should we have started taxing tractors? I really have difficulties seeing AI as anything else than yet another type of machinery. If your argument is "but it's replacing ALMOST ALL human labour" - well, the same argument was valid for tractors a hundred years ago (when almost everyone was employed in agriculture).

This argument hinges rather strongly on whether or not AI is going to create a broad, durable, and lasting unemployment effect. Tractors did not cause this phenomenon because jevons paradox kicked in and induced demand rendered the problem moot, or demand eventually exceeded what mere tractors were capable of doing for agricultural productivity. The same can probably be said for contemporary AI, but it's tough to tel…

I think you're basing AI only on modern 2025 LLMs.

If there is a magnitude increase in compute (TPUs, NPUs, etc) over the next 3-5 years then even marginal increases in LLM usability will take white collar jobs.

If there is an exponential increase in power (fusion) and compute (quantum) combined with improvements in robotics and you're in the territory where humans can entirely be replaced in all industries (blue collar, white collar, doctors, lawyers, etc).

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

#404

Post by RobertoG »

jlawson wrote: post #395
dymk wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a matter of where you get your taxes from. Plenty of corporations can afford to pay a more fair share. And studies on basic income have so far shown it to be effective.

Studies on basic income have shown that it's harmful to the people who receive it. They report no improvements on any measured outcome. Not lower stress, not more education, not better health. They work a bit less but that doesn't help them or their kids. Over the long term it harms them because their productive skills, values, and emotional capacities atrophy away from lack of use.

what studies are those?

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

#405

Post by komali2 »

iso1631 wrote: post #389
komali2 wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

.1% hold 12.6% of national wealth so that's 300,000 people. It tends to clump at the top, apparently. In any case, it seems a bit bizarre to me that the wealth is distributed so unevenly. Do you believe those 3 million people work so hard that their value is that much higher than the combined output of 297 million people?

To be in the top .1% you need a wealth of about $60m, certainly nothing to be worried about, it gives you a very nice standard of living. But it's a lot nearer to someone at the 90%ile wealth of about $2m than the kind of power that those with $1b, let alone centi-billionaires, have. You're talking top level entertainers (actors, sportmen etc)

Good point, maybe the more important statistic is that there's 900 billionaires in America, representing about 7 trillion in collective wealth. The USA GDP is 30 trillion... the situation just seems inherently wrong to me.

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

#406

Post by thatjoeoverthr »

“Boo capitalism” on the outside, AI personhood on the inside. Actual agenda: disposable moral vehicles. AI liability is the goal.

A tax on corporate profits is a tax on cost cutting already.

A tax on “AI” is a way to compartmentalize. But you can’t, and you shouldn’t.

First, you won’t be able to formalize which gains are “AI” and which are not. Is it deep learning? If so, a gunshot detector is taxed and a McDonald’s touch screen is not. Is that what you want?

Second, a host of labor savings that don’t look like “robotics” or “AI” are also not covered. If you increase the MTBF on a traffic light, you cut the labor of light replacement. Is this morally different than a McDonald’s kiosk?

What about the traffic light itself? Shouldn’t that be a cop with a whistle?

We can do this all day.

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

#407

Post by zozbot234 »

robinhoode wrote: post #340
zozbot234 wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a bad deal. Capital makes the marginal worker more productive, not less. You can tax the worker and she will still be better off than if you had taxed the capital, due to greater productivity. (This argument also applies to AI, of course. Since AI doesn't just instantly wipe out all jobs, there will be many workers that will benefit from it and will thus be quite able to fund their governments and social syst…

> This is a bad deal. Capital makes the marginal worker more productive, not less. Why should workers care about being more productive if they do not reap the rewards in terms of wages? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decoupling_of_wages_from_produ...

Total compensation involves more than just wages. Providing benefits such as healthcare coverage is inherently expensive, since productivity gains in healthcare have been limited.

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

#408

Post by lelandfe »

ashleyn wrote: post #366
vjk800 wrote: post #344

Tractors largely replaced human labour in farming about a hundred years ago. Should we have started taxing tractors? I really have difficulties seeing AI as anything else than yet another type of machinery. If your argument is "but it's replacing ALMOST ALL human labour" - well, the same argument was valid for tractors a hundred years ago (when almost everyone was employed in agriculture).

This argument hinges rather strongly on whether or not AI is going to create a broad, durable, and lasting unemployment effect. Tractors did not cause this phenomenon because jevons paradox kicked in and induced demand rendered the problem moot, or demand eventually exceeded what mere tractors were capable of doing for agricultural productivity. The same can probably be said for contemporary AI, but it's tough to tel…

> technological unemployment is not something that will be sudden or obvious

I already have friends experiencing technological unemployment. Programmers suddenly need backup plans. Several designers I know are changing careers. Not to mention, the voiceover artist profession will probably cease to exist besides this last batch of known voices. Writer, editor - these were dependable careers for friends, once. A friend travelled the world and did freelance copyediting for large clients.

ChatGPT was just released three years ago.

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

#409

Post by [deleted] »

zwnow wrote: post #393
renewiltord wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basic income doesn’t do anything. We already have food stamps and so on. The largest sector of US federal spending is health and social welfare. We’d have to end pretty much all those programs to run a minuscule basic income.

Whats the alternative? Kill off all humans replaced by AI unable to do something else for a living? Its sad enough that there are food stamps given the amount of food that regularly ends up in a dumpster on a daily basis. Humans come first, not machinery.

[deleted]

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

#410

Post by testbjjl »

vjk800 wrote: post #344

Tractors largely replaced human labour in farming about a hundred years ago. Should we have started taxing tractors? I really have difficulties seeing AI as anything else than yet another type of machinery. If your argument is "but it's replacing ALMOST ALL human labour" - well, the same argument was valid for tractors a hundred years ago (when almost everyone was employed in agriculture).

Tractors replaced a task in specific fields, farming, construction largely. AI seems to have the potential to cover more territory. The potential blast radius is greater.
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