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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?

#961

Post by llsf »

kiliantics wrote: post #897
llsf wrote: post #804

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if I build and manage a dark factory ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lights_out_(manufacturing) ) and it produces gizmos. Since all my competitors are also running dark factories, we compete essentially on source materials + energy (assuming we have similar design/quality). Margin would be eventually razor thin. The dark factory does not make much capital gains, even as it produces 1,000 gizmo per second. The ca…

Taxes used to be based only on property rather than labour, maybe we should go back to that. Of course this won't happen as it is a force of wealth-deconcentration.

By property you mean land property only or any possession (capital) ?

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

#962

Post by llsf »

UltraSane wrote: post #821
llsf wrote: post #804

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if I build and manage a dark factory ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lights_out_(manufacturing) ) and it produces gizmos. Since all my competitors are also running dark factories, we compete essentially on source materials + energy (assuming we have similar design/quality). Margin would be eventually razor thin. The dark factory does not make much capital gains, even as it produces 1,000 gizmo per second. The ca…

Who buys what you make if you need no employees?

Not 100% of the employees work on manufacturing, and it would crater the price of the products, so some should be able to buy ?

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

#963

Post by tt24 »

platevoltage wrote: post #954
tt24 wrote: post #893

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No thanks. I’ll happily vote against this at any opportunity.

I guess I don’t like the taste of of boot leather as much as you do.

Or as a top 1% income earner (like most SWEs in the United States) I just don’t enjoy paying taxes very much.

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

#964

Post by llsf »

haroldp wrote: post #846
rtkwe wrote: post #843

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've launched dozens of shuttles below the minimum temp threshold before there's no reason to delay this launch... Also that's a singular industry, if the current crop of AI companies deliver what their hype and valuation demands it's a shock across the whole economy not isolated.

> Also that's a singular industry 200 years ago, 95% of the workers in my country worked in subsistence farming. Today, only 2% are farmers. The whole spectrum of labor has turned upside down and upside down again, in that time. It has certainly not been a singular industry.

> 200 years ago, 95% of the workers in my country worked in subsistence farming. Today, only 2% are farmers.

Yes, it took some time to go from manual/animal labor (energy used is food) to mechanical labor (mostly oil energy). And oil is more energy dense than food, and tractors are more powerful than horses. And bonus points for the oil, it allowed to build fertilizers to boost productivity per acre. So, yes eventually we just need 2% to do what what 95% used to do in farming.

AI is promising to do the same but in virtually all industries (manufacturing, services, healthcare, etc.) and in a way shorten span.

Work used to be labor (human/animal) fueled by energy (food) + intelligence (human) fueled by energy (food), then labor (machine) fueled by energy (oil/electricity) + intelligence (AI) fueled by energy (electricity).

IF work is mostly done by AI/machines fueled by energy. Then work's price is mostly a function of energy price (assuming materials can be extracted/transported/transformed is also a function of energy).

If energy becomes abundant and cheap, then there is no reasons to not let AI do the work.

But then what happens to the rest of us, how the economy keeps humming ?

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

#965

Post by vel0city »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #936
unsungNovelty wrote: post #926

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My problem is when you automate, the benefits are not passed on to the entire chain of people involved even though we start the discussion with that. So what do we do?

In a competitive market, efficiency gains are generally going to end up as lower prices to the customer, which is the main way that ordinary people benefit from them. That doesn't happen when the market is consolidated and the oligopoly keeps the gains themselves. So, ensure competitive markets by thwarting regulatory capture and enforcing antitrust laws.

But if we fully automate how to make and sell and deliver TVs and blenders and now I can get a 200" TV for $2 and a blender for $0.05 but now I don't have a job so I can't afford even a basic apartment what do we do with our society?

Like sure all the goods are stupid cheap but things that are actually naturally rivalrous and exclusive like real estate continue to hold value most random people are pretty fucked it seems.

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

#966

Post by vel0city »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #845
malfist wrote: post #773

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. Why not? We already get taxed multiple ways. I pay income tax and sales tax

> We already get taxed multiple ways. I pay income tax and sales tax Shouldn't we also not do that ? Suppose you pay a 25% income tax and then a 10% sales tax. You're paying the same amount, almost a third of your income, as you would with a 47% sales tax. Which to begin with misleads people into thinking their rate is lower than it is, and on top of that incurs the significant overhead of needing two independent col…

> Suppose you pay a 25% income tax and then a 10% sales tax. You're paying the same amount, almost a third of your income, as you would with a 47% sales tax.

No, I don't, because I don't spend 100% of my income every year on income-tax applicable goods. A good chunk of my income, even that which is taxed with income tax, goes to other things (like my mortgage, other investments, groceries, savings accounts, charitable donations, etc.) that either defer paying sales taxes or have no sales tax applied.

Meanwhile other purchases have extra sales taxes applied such a liquor or hospitality taxes.

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

#967

Post by vel0city »

giaour wrote: post #725
bombcar wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you dig into how property tax is allocated, your tax will only go up if your house appreciates more than similar properties - which usually has something like redevelopment or other externality. It is normally not a fixed percentage of your value, but simply "here's what the county/city paid this/next year, divided amongst the properties proportionate to the value." Some, like sewer, etc, are per-property, but mos…

I'm sure it depends on the jurisdiction, but all the property taxes I have ever paid (which, to be fair, has been in one county) have been a fixed percentage of the value of the property.

Those percentages tend to change over time though, right? What inputs do you think they have to their ideas on how to adjust it?

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

#968

Post by AngryData »

rayiner wrote: post #770
mrguyorama wrote: post #740

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>if you count employer contributions to employee heath insurance You shouldn't. >and employers probably shouldn't even be involved in sponsoring group health plans in the first place. They are free to lobby for socialized medicine, but they don't because they like how the current system helps lock employees into bad jobs for any amount of healthcare.

If you're trying to understand changes in the share of income going to workers versus employers, then you must count those contributions. For the average family, employers pay $20,143 annually in premiums: https://www.kff.org/affordable-care-act/annual-family-premiu... . From the perspective of the employer, that's real money, no different than if they had paid the $20,143 directly to the employee as wages. It's not…

Maybe people would view it more like that if they actually had the option to get paid cash instead of an insurance plan of the same supposed value. With some employees that is possible to negotiate, but for the vast majority of employees with a healthcare plan that is a big no unless they are willing to accept a tiny fraction of the insurance value.

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

#969

Post by AngryData »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #939
xjm wrote: post #937

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you pay it off with taxable income. If you have a lot of assets you can just refinance your loan with more debt.

This makes no sense. How is lender going to make money?

They still charge interest but at a rate lower than the tax rate of earning it as income.

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

#970

Post by refurb »

BrenBarn wrote: post #787
refurb wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you want to stop or severely disincentivize productive uses of capital? Sounds like a great way to throw the economy into a depression.

We currently live under the misapprehension that a company growing from a value of $100 million to a value of $1 billion is a "productive use of capital". My contention is that in general that is not true, and that kind of growth from big to bigger is harmful. We want to disincentivize the concentration of growth and capital in already-large companies, and incentivize the diffusion of wealth in many small enterprises…

The very fact that a company grows in value from $X to $X * 1000 is proof that it’s productive use of capital.
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