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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?

#481

Post by [deleted] »

SecretDreams wrote: post #358
Treegarden wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not an easy question. It seemingly boils down to: what are fair ways to extract value from citizens for the shared value of the state? However, the root questions are: what should the state provide, how much, and of what nature? A secondary question then becomes how important the redistributive aspect is. That’s what you’re seemingly alluding to when you say: people work, get taxed on it, but others automate…

> the core benefit of automation The core benefit of automation is to give back time to humans to free us to do more creative things with our big beautiful brains. At least, that would be the core benefit if humanity was on a positive trajectory.

[deleted]

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

#482

Post by cced »

zozbot234 wrote: post #334
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.

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…

> You can tax the worker and she will still be better off than if you had taxed the capital, due to greater productivity.

This assumes the worker is the one benefiting from the productivity gains. We're just worked more and we don't get the added value.

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

#484

Post by carlosjobim »

rimbo789 wrote: post #250
jaccola wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is utterly backwards and your false statement leads to a completely wrong set of inferences. We don't let corporations do anything because they provide value through jobs and taxes. What company do you know that exists (beyond transiently) solely by paying taxes and employing people? Companies are an extension of the individual, they exist to make money for the individuals that own them so that those individuals…

Corporations don’t provide goods or services: people inside them do. Corporations are a legal structure we allow to exist because it enables jobs and taxes. Corporations don’t have to exist; they are a creation of society and thus can - and I think obviously- should be changed

Have you ever done anything together with a group of other people? That is a company. That's why they are called companies. They are a group of people doing things.

That has existed for millions of years already. First as hunting companies, then as raiding companies. It exists in other species as well. It will never go away. It has existed in every human society, no matter what political or economical ideology.

The real question is how companies should be organized and owned.

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

#485

Post by 9rx »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #419
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).

Pretty sure farmers don't buy them tax free? I'm sure they write some of the cost off, but they still foot the rest of the tax burden.

> Pretty sure farmers don't buy them tax free?

I do. Agriculture products are zero-rated. But obviously it depends on jurisdiction.

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

#487

Post by rjdj377dhabsn »

MLgulabio wrote: post #292
rjdj377dhabsn wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So.. communism? That hasn't worked out too great in the past.

Uncontrolled capitalism hasn't worked either. Controlled capitalism brought us were we are today: Huge inequality around the globe especially in 3th world countries like the USA and destruction of the whole ecosystem we live in. Communism didn't look great next to capitalism (east europe vs. west europe) but those people were also happy. My idea is not communism though, its a 'if you do beneficial things for society,…

> If you take care of kids, we the planet, have resources for you.

That sounds nice, but who is going to decide exactly which behaviors to reward and by how much?

To avoid grift and corruption, we should probably have everyone vote on it in some kind of democratic process, right? Well that's basically what we have today with municipal elections, and looks like the consensus is we actually don't want to pay teachers all that much.

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

#488

Post by PopAlongKid »

tossandthrow wrote: post #302
koolba wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Are you talking about taxing unrealized capital gains? Because for the situation where capital is directly replacing labor, the income generation is taxed regardless of the whether it’s generated by a human or machine. If I hire people to make an…

> One can’t spend any of the money until it becomes personal assets. The oldest trick in the book is to use unrealized gains as collateral for loans - we even have banks specializing in this. Oh, and the US has a law that erases the tax bill for dead people - you'd be stupid not to use this trick.

>the US has a law that erases the tax bill for dead people

That is true, but there is a theory, applied very weakly, that supports this. The idea is that a decedent's estate is subject to a wealth tax on its fair market value, therefore to also subject the unrealized gains within the estate to income tax would be double taxation, which is to be avoided. The flaw is that the exemption from the estate tax is relatively high (something like $13,000K), so there would not be any double taxation is most cases, but it's treated that way nonetheless.

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

#489

Post by cubefox »

epolanski wrote: post #304
HPsquared wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm not sure about that to be honest. 1. Financial perspective. People are too focused on what "the best" is, rather than what is the most financially viable at scale, which is what really matters. At the peak of the Ethereum mining craze in 2016/2017 the GTX Titan X was the best performing GPU. But buying 200$ AMD Polaris GPUs was what gave you the most performance per $ and per watt. 2. Open source models keep bein…

> 1. Financial perspective. People are too focused on what "the best" is, rather than what is the most financially viable at scale, which is what really matters.

I don't think so: People flocked to ChatGPT because it was the best, even though there are far cheaper options. If you are 10% better than any competitor, you don't get just 10% more market share, you get far more. It's a winner-takes-most situation.

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

#490

Post by hrimfaxi »

andsoitis wrote: post #469
smallmancontrov wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Homeowners get taxed every year on the value of their property. Let's do that to stocks, too.

> Homeowners get taxed every year on the value of their property By the local municipality, not the federal or state government.

Is that a big distinction? Is there anything limiting the states from preempting municipalities and levying at the state level?
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