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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?

#601

Post by andrei_says_ »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #584
slowmovintarget wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I'm suspicious of UBI as well. I guess I don't believe it brings about the best in human nature—nor does Capitalism in many regards.

Trials show that UBI is fantastic and does bring the best in people, lifting them from poverty and addiction, making them happier, healthier and better educated.

It is awful for the extractive economy as employees are no longer desperate.

Here’s a discussion with a historian who has done a lot of research on the topic https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/8de9u2/i_am_a_histori...

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

#602

Post by visarga »

slowmovintarget wrote: post #331
harperlee wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% agree! I find quite concerning that this point is not immediate in any conversation about AI or robots impacting the number of jobs, and the subsequent conversation about innovating new taxes. AI and robots are capital as any other automation on a factory, and capital gains should be taxed appropriately. This is not a new thing completely separate from the untouchable status quo wrt existing taxes. If it tickles…

The real issue should not be whether they're paying the government. The issue is whether they're paying us for taking the human content of the last two thousand years and baking it into their generators. How do we get royalties on this, like our share of the oil proceeds if we were citizens of Qatar? How do we trade our share of the contribution? There's twenty years of my posting on Reddit, Slashdot, HN, and other f…

> The issue is whether they're paying us for taking the human content of the last two thousand years and baking it into their generators.

Payment for content access is a sure way to limit progress and freedom. Should I pay you based on quantity, quality, or usage that relates to your content? How about the ideas you took from other people, should you pay them? Where does it stop?

I think the copyright system as it exists today is just absurd - a complete inversion of what it was supposed to do. It was meant to promote progress by protecting expression. Now look at what's happened: total concept and feel protects aesthetic gestalt, Structure and Srrangement protects how elements relate, Whelan Test protects the entire logical skeleton while AFC (abstraction filtration comparison) enables hierarchical abstraction protection.

Each rung up the ladder takes us further from "I wrote this specific thing" toward "nobody else can solve this problem in similar ways". This is how platforms get rich while common people, readers and creators, lose their freedoms and are exploited.

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

#603

Post by grigri907 »

zozbot234 wrote: post #407
robinhoode wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The point still remains, it's not like I get double the healthcare if I increase productivity.

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

#604

Post by delaminator »

nextaccountic wrote: post #325
nairboon wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be a highly bureaucratic solution with significant overheads. Would everyone pay extra tax per kWh or just AI computers? Tax it on the producer or consumer side? How would you verify that a particular data center is "bad computation" and needs a different tax rate on its energy usage. Should an AI data center from pharmaceuticals or biotech startup be taxed extra per kWh, even if the AI is purely used for…

Just big AI datacenters. If this encourages people to run local AI, all the better. > Should an AI data center from pharmaceuticals or biotech startup be taxed extra per kWh, even if the AI is purely used for medical research? That's not a gotcha.. those are all policy choices. My personal preference is, yes, of course - medical research today is taxed just fine. If there's lobbying to specifically grant tax benefits…

You think multiple localised heat centres are more efficient than centralised managed heat centres. Why don't we all just have a coal-fired power station in our back garden?

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

#605

Post by overrun11 »

lenerdenator wrote: post #568
thesmtsolver2 wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you are assuming there is a central benevolent dictator who can compute "Value" more accurately than millions of people collectively voting with their wallets.

Not to speak for the other poster but I didn't see any implication of a central benevolent dictator in their comment.

It's implicit. Amazon has billions of dollars because customers freely handed over the money. We know they found the service valuable because they wouldn't have done so otherwise.

The poster is suggesting there is some _true_ value separate from what these customers who know their own situations best think. That they are secretly being fleeced and a central planner will somehow better allocate the resources.

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

#606

Post by enigma101 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #435
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.

>The largest sector of US federal spending is health and social welfare. On old people who can't or don't work.

they will likely die first when society collapses

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

#607

Post by danielscrubs »

Treegarden wrote: post #336
harperlee wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% agree! I find quite concerning that this point is not immediate in any conversation about AI or robots impacting the number of jobs, and the subsequent conversation about innovating new taxes. AI and robots are capital as any other automation on a factory, and capital gains should be taxed appropriately. This is not a new thing completely separate from the untouchable status quo wrt existing taxes. If it tickles…

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…

You could argue that the point of creating an oligopoly and then squeezing customers after the fact also is adding friction. All value creation is not great for the people. But it is hidden under the name. Financial engineering and rent-seeking are getting quite advanced nowadays, because of the political class.

I like the idea of classifying it into four buckets: those that are below tax net gains for a country, those who are above and those that are above the tax net gains using just their wealth, and then the government.

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

#608

Post by therealwhytry »

thunky wrote: post #368
slowmovintarget wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real issue should not be whether they're paying the government. The issue is whether they're paying us for taking the human content of the last two thousand years and baking it into their generators. How do we get royalties on this, like our share of the oil proceeds if we were citizens of Qatar? How do we trade our share of the contribution? There's twenty years of my posting on Reddit, Slashdot, HN, and other f…

> where's my royalty check? I support the idea of UBI with zero conditions, but not this. You didn't get royalties before AI when someone was heavily influenced by your work/content and converted that into money. If you expected compensation, then you shouldn't have given away your work for free.

originally we all posted online to help each other, with problems we mutually have. it was community, and we always gave since we got back in a free exchange.

now, there is an oligarchy coming to compile all of that community to then serve it at a paid cost. what used to be free with some search, now is not and the government of the people is allowing no choice by the people (in any capacity).

once capital comes for things at scale (with the full backing of the government), and they monetize that and treat it as "their own" i would consider that plagiarism.

how can we be expected to pay taxes on every microtransaction, when we get nothing for equally traceable contributions to the new machine?

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

#609

Post by unboxingelf »

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 argue there is a more fundamental problem with the money: Debasement.

Debasement is an invisible tax and its effects far outweigh individuals bypassing taxes.

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

#610

Post by galaxyLogic »

brandall10 wrote: post #494
slowmovintarget wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Curious, what is your solution to this situation? Imagine all labor has been automated - virtually all facets of life have been commoditized, how does the average person survive in such a society?

I would go further and ask how does a person who is unable to work survive in our current society? Should we let them die of hunger? Send them to Equador? Of course not, only nazis would propose such a solution.
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