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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 con

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 your political kneejerk, explore that, but playing tax sci-fi is distracting and thus dangerous.

bruce511 10mo ago
I'm not sure I'm following your thought on capital gains tax. Capital Gain tax occurs when you sell an asset for more than you paid for it. AI (software) is not an asset, and I'm not sure how you'd sell it. Computers and robots are assets (although they typically depreciate not appreciate.) Either way capital gains tax is applied to the asset not the productivity of the asset. The productivity in turn is taxed as part of income tax. Perhaps I have misunderstood your point though?
- lazide 10mo ago
  The ownership of software absolutely is an asset. It’s Intellectual Property. What are you referring to?
  - deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
  - solumunus 10mo ago
    They’re referring to the comment that they’re replying to, which talks about capital gains tax in an entirely different context to how you referenced software ownership.
    - jameshart 10mo ago
      If a business invests in building an AI system, they now have an asset, and the value of the business reflects the fact the business owns that software asset now - if someone were to buy the business they would get the AI software and all its potential to monetize that asset in the future, so of course it has value. If its value grows beyond the value the business originally invested to acquire it, it is quite literally a capital gain. Why do you think Anthropic is worth $175-$350bn? Where did that capital value come from?
      - solumunus 10mo ago
        Yes, that’s how a software business works. The OP seemed to be talking about how we need to reform tax due to worker replacement. Everyone is talking past each other.
        bruce511 10mo ago
        Correct, building an AI is an asset, which can then be rented to other businesses. However the thread revolves around employers replacing employees with AI. Given that the number of AI creators is minimal, and the number of companies replacing employees is large, it follows that most companies replacing employees are renting AI, they did not create it. Hence, for those companies, AI is not an asset, it is an expense. One way of taxing those companies would be to tax AI producers based on revenue, not profits. If 50% of revenue was tax, then, the costs of AI to the end-user would go up to cover that. So revenue would "double", but half would go to govt. I am not a tax lawyer though, but I expect such a scheme is so radically different to the current tax regime, that is has precisely zero chance of being implemented like this.
        solumunus 10mo ago
        > One way of taxing those companies would be to tax AI producers based on revenue, not profits. Why?
        jameshart 10mo ago
  - WalterBright 10mo ago
    > The ownership of software absolutely is an asset It's a good thing we give the D compiler system away for free! You don't have to be concerned about being taxed on it.
- smallmancontrov 10mo ago
  If your brokerage account is large enough that most of your change-in-net-worth happens in unrealized capital gains, your tax rate is 0%. That's pathological at the best of times and in a "capital wins" scenario it's positively thermonuclear.
  - JoeAltmaier 10mo ago
    Folks like to hate on capital gains tax. I think it's perceived as a rich-person deal. But homeowners, do they get taxed each year on the increase in value of their house? Almost the same thing, but not hated on the same way.
    - smallmancontrov 10mo ago
      Homeowners get taxed every year on the value of their property. Let's do that to stocks, too.
      - immibis 10mo ago
        I think both stocks and homes should be taxed on realized value. If you sell it, that realizes the value, but also if you use it as collateral, that realizes the value. If you just live in it, we could say that it realizes the amount of rent you would have paid, or that it realizes nothing.
        smallmancontrov 10mo ago
        No, the exponential runaway of "rich people get paid for being rich in proportion to how rich they are" is the core problem and focusing on the derivative is a magic trick intended primarily to draw attention away from the core problem. The fact that an earned derivative gets heavily taxed and an unearned derivative gets lightly taxed is so stupendously wacky that the absurdity is obvious, but the integral is the core problem.
        phil21 10mo ago
slowmovintarget 10mo ago
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 forums, that we know for a fact has been used in these frontier models. Great... where's my royalty check? Pay us, not the government. We'll have to pay taxes regardless, and yes, close the tax loopholes on security-based capital gains (don't tax me for all the investment in my primary residence, that's a double dip). I heard this called "Coasian" economics (as in Coase). I'm not sure what that actually means, though.
- thunky 10mo ago
  > 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.
  - slowmovintarget 10mo ago
    [flagged]
    - brandall10 10mo ago
      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?
      - bombcar 10mo ago
        Isn't this the premise of some sci-fi books and such? (We in some way, in the developed world, are already mostly here in that the lifestyle of even a well-off person of a thousand years ago is almost entirely supported by machines and such; less than 10% of labor is in farming. What did we do? Created more work (and some would say much busy-work).)
Treegarden 10mo ago
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 that work and this automation does not get taxed. Following that line of thinking makes sense, but it also contradicts the core benefit of automation, which is to delete non-needed work, make things cheaper, and make the value creator richer. If the goal of redistribution is usually that “more” people reach a higher standard of living, then adding taxes and friction to processes like automation may conflict with that goal, given that automation is arguably one of the strongest natural drivers of higher living standards overall. Of course, the counterpoint to “what and how much should the state provide” is “who should pitch in, and how much,” which is what you’re focusing on. I mostly agree that everyone should be taxed fairly, but I also see many exemption cases, because taxes are friction and we often want certain things to be frictionless. For example, I would oppose taxes on life-saving surgeries. But where do you draw the line? What about automation that indirectly enables or improves life-saving surgery?
- SecretDreams 10mo ago
  > 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 10mo ago
    [deleted]
- lumost 10mo ago
  There are core features of the state that we have collectively agreed must be provided - social safety (including police and safety nets), infrastructure, defense, core research funding and more. The cost of providing the basic obligations and debt service of the U.S. amounts to roughly 1/3rd of the U.S. GDP, while taxation on any activity induces friction and higher costs - the bill will need to be paid either via capital markets or taxation. The investment in automation is no more important than food, or my children's education in my view. Taxation is generally preferable for capital owners compared to currency debasement and forced debt purchases as it maintains boundaries on what the state can and cannot do. If the current trend is towards a greater share of the economy accruing to capital owners is maintained, then capital taxes will eventually need to rise to sustain state obligations.
mannanj 10mo ago
its not in the convo because these capital high intensities are the ones lobbying and owning the politicians. they're each other friends. taxes were always intended even in this country to be a thing applied to serfdom: we weren't in reality immune from the conditions we aimed to flee from Great Britain where kings and queens gained qualified immunity and sovereign status - sometimes it seems like are just a "free" slave nation.
paul7986 10mo ago
States not being able to regulate this is dangerous. A close friend of mine has given up on reality and talks about Roberto the love of her life the one she always wanted and Roberto is chatGPT :-(. She previously mentioned she didnt like chatGPT 5.0 cause it wasnt as agreeable yet now she says 5.1 is better.. back to how it was before 5.0 and now out of the blue mentioned Roberto. chatGPT is a sypcophant and without regulation any AI company can and or will juice their algorithms so their AI system becomes cocaine for the millions of lonely to unsatisfied people out there. My friend has a partner of 30 years but their relationship is that of roommates. If you think she is not you that might be correct but you know someone like her and possibly many like her. Unsatisfied, not able to get that movie type love / romance / fantasy and now unfetterd AI can get these people hooked like cocaine and into the depth of zero reality!
- ryandrake 10mo ago
  I dunno--of all the AI based products coming out, the whole "AI girlfriend / AI boyfriend" thing bothers me the least. If someone can afford it and they want a play relationship with a computer, then I don't see the harm. It's probably safer, better and healthier than many real-human relationships are. If they're getting what they need out of the computer, who are we to judge? I would change my opinion if it could be shown to have the negative physical harm that your cocaine example implies.
  - mplewis9z 10mo ago
    The problem is when things like this happens: https://apnews.com/article/chatbot-ai-lawsuit-suicide-teen-artificial-intelligence-9d48adc572100822fdbc3c90d1456bd0 https://apnews.com/article/chatbot-ai-lawsuit-suicide-teen-a... When AI behaves sycohphantically towards someone, it can encourage and exacerbate any mental health problems they may already be having, especially related to social isolation.
    - ryandrake 10mo ago
      That's indeed a problem. Thanks for bringing it up. These things clearly are not as harmless as I had assumed.
jimbokun 10mo ago
What is the correct capital gains tax rate?
- atomicthumbs 10mo ago
  100%
- malfist 10mo ago
  Why should capital have a separate tax rate than people?
  - warkdarrior 10mo ago
    Also, if companies have rights like people do, then they and their shareholders should be taxed like people are.
    - icedchai 10mo ago
      You want to tax people twice? Corporations pay taxes on profit. Shareholders pay taxes on dividends and capital gains.
      - malfist 10mo ago
        Sure. Why not? We already get taxed multiple ways. I pay income tax and sales tax
        icedchai 10mo ago
        Do I get a refund the next year when the stock drops due to an executive scandal?
        malfist 10mo ago
        No but you can use the loss to offset other gains. Just like you do today. There's nothing new there. Google tax loss harvesting
dzhiurgis 10mo ago
So the remaining 3 workers will be paying 100% of tax. Doesn’t seem fair to me.
llsf 10mo ago
What if I build and manage a dark factory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lights_out_(manufacturing) 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 capital gain is not much , but since we have only a handful of employees, that is enough to pay everyone a decent wage, after paying for the factory itself, source materials and energy. How much tax do we expect to get from this gizmo company ? 10 years ago, to produce the same gizmos, I needed 5,000 employees, the unit price was way higher, and had higher revenue. But since AI and dark factories came, the prices cratered, instead of 5,000 jobs, we only have 5 jobs to produce the same. Sure the 4,995 unemployed might be able to afford the gizmo, but the state does not receive the same taxes. So what happens to those 4,995 unemployed people ? who is paying for their health benefits and social security (retirement) ? I am wondering how best to solve that equation ?
- UltraSane 10mo ago
  Who buys what you make if you need no employees?
  - haroldp 10mo ago
    Now that jacquard loom has left so many textile workers unemployed?
    - rtkwe 10mo ago
      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.
      - haroldp 10mo ago
yibg 10mo ago
It is already taxed as capital gains though. Software (including AI), if sold either in isolation or with the entire company does trigger capital gains considerations. If you're referring to some equivalent of wealth tax or inverse of accounting for deprecations in terms of assets, then that seems pretty problematic. 1) how do you asset the value of something until someone pays something for it? Unlike homes, where you can compare roughly to those around you, this seems much more dynamic for software / AI. 2) Let's say we are able to assess the value, so now a startup with software but no revenue has to pay taxes? Where does the money come from?

bruce511 10mo ago

I'm not sure I'm following your thought on capital gains tax. Capital Gain tax occurs when you sell an asset for more than you paid for it. AI (software) is not an asset, and I'm not sure how you'd sell it. Computers and robots are assets (although they typically depreciate not appreciate.) Either way capital gains tax is applied to the asset not the productivity of the asset. The productivity in turn is taxed as part of income tax. Perhaps I have misunderstood your point though?

lazide 10mo ago
The ownership of software absolutely is an asset. It’s Intellectual Property. What are you referring to?
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
- solumunus 10mo ago
  They’re referring to the comment that they’re replying to, which talks about capital gains tax in an entirely different context to how you referenced software ownership.
  - jameshart 10mo ago
    If a business invests in building an AI system, they now have an asset, and the value of the business reflects the fact the business owns that software asset now - if someone were to buy the business they would get the AI software and all its potential to monetize that asset in the future, so of course it has value. If its value grows beyond the value the business originally invested to acquire it, it is quite literally a capital gain. Why do you think Anthropic is worth $175-$350bn? Where did that capital value come from?
    - solumunus 10mo ago
      Yes, that’s how a software business works. The OP seemed to be talking about how we need to reform tax due to worker replacement. Everyone is talking past each other.
      - bruce511 10mo ago
        Correct, building an AI is an asset, which can then be rented to other businesses. However the thread revolves around employers replacing employees with AI. Given that the number of AI creators is minimal, and the number of companies replacing employees is large, it follows that most companies replacing employees are renting AI, they did not create it. Hence, for those companies, AI is not an asset, it is an expense. One way of taxing those companies would be to tax AI producers based on revenue, not profits. If 50% of revenue was tax, then, the costs of AI to the end-user would go up to cover that. So revenue would "double", but half would go to govt. I am not a tax lawyer though, but I expect such a scheme is so radically different to the current tax regime, that is has precisely zero chance of being implemented like this.
        solumunus 10mo ago
        > One way of taxing those companies would be to tax AI producers based on revenue, not profits. Why?
        jameshart 10mo ago
- WalterBright 10mo ago
  > The ownership of software absolutely is an asset It's a good thing we give the D compiler system away for free! You don't have to be concerned about being taxed on it.
smallmancontrov 10mo ago
If your brokerage account is large enough that most of your change-in-net-worth happens in unrealized capital gains, your tax rate is 0%. That's pathological at the best of times and in a "capital wins" scenario it's positively thermonuclear.
- JoeAltmaier 10mo ago
  Folks like to hate on capital gains tax. I think it's perceived as a rich-person deal. But homeowners, do they get taxed each year on the increase in value of their house? Almost the same thing, but not hated on the same way.
  - smallmancontrov 10mo ago
    Homeowners get taxed every year on the value of their property. Let's do that to stocks, too.
    - immibis 10mo ago
      I think both stocks and homes should be taxed on realized value. If you sell it, that realizes the value, but also if you use it as collateral, that realizes the value. If you just live in it, we could say that it realizes the amount of rent you would have paid, or that it realizes nothing.
      - smallmancontrov 10mo ago
        No, the exponential runaway of "rich people get paid for being rich in proportion to how rich they are" is the core problem and focusing on the derivative is a magic trick intended primarily to draw attention away from the core problem. The fact that an earned derivative gets heavily taxed and an unearned derivative gets lightly taxed is so stupendously wacky that the absurdity is obvious, but the integral is the core problem.
        phil21 10mo ago

slowmovintarget 10mo ago

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 forums, that we know for a fact has been used in these frontier models. Great... where's my royalty check? Pay us, not the government. We'll have to pay taxes regardless, and yes, close the tax loopholes on security-based capital gains (don't tax me for all the investment in my primary residence, that's a double dip). I heard this called "Coasian" economics (as in Coase). I'm not sure what that actually means, though.

thunky 10mo ago
> 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.
- slowmovintarget 10mo ago
  [flagged]
  - brandall10 10mo ago
    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?
    - bombcar 10mo ago
      Isn't this the premise of some sci-fi books and such? (We in some way, in the developed world, are already mostly here in that the lifestyle of even a well-off person of a thousand years ago is almost entirely supported by machines and such; less than 10% of labor is in farming. What did we do? Created more work (and some would say much busy-work).)

Treegarden 10mo ago

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 that work and this automation does not get taxed. Following that line of thinking makes sense, but it also contradicts the core benefit of automation, which is to delete non-needed work, make things cheaper, and make the value creator richer. If the goal of redistribution is usually that “more” people reach a higher standard of living, then adding taxes and friction to processes like automation may conflict with that goal, given that automation is arguably one of the strongest natural drivers of higher living standards overall. Of course, the counterpoint to “what and how much should the state provide” is “who should pitch in, and how much,” which is what you’re focusing on. I mostly agree that everyone should be taxed fairly, but I also see many exemption cases, because taxes are friction and we often want certain things to be frictionless. For example, I would oppose taxes on life-saving surgeries. But where do you draw the line? What about automation that indirectly enables or improves life-saving surgery?

SecretDreams 10mo ago
> 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 10mo ago
  [deleted]
lumost 10mo ago
There are core features of the state that we have collectively agreed must be provided - social safety (including police and safety nets), infrastructure, defense, core research funding and more. The cost of providing the basic obligations and debt service of the U.S. amounts to roughly 1/3rd of the U.S. GDP, while taxation on any activity induces friction and higher costs - the bill will need to be paid either via capital markets or taxation. The investment in automation is no more important than food, or my children's education in my view. Taxation is generally preferable for capital owners compared to currency debasement and forced debt purchases as it maintains boundaries on what the state can and cannot do. If the current trend is towards a greater share of the economy accruing to capital owners is maintained, then capital taxes will eventually need to rise to sustain state obligations.

mannanj 10mo ago

its not in the convo because these capital high intensities are the ones lobbying and owning the politicians. they're each other friends. taxes were always intended even in this country to be a thing applied to serfdom: we weren't in reality immune from the conditions we aimed to flee from Great Britain where kings and queens gained qualified immunity and sovereign status - sometimes it seems like are just a "free" slave nation.

paul7986 10mo ago

States not being able to regulate this is dangerous. A close friend of mine has given up on reality and talks about Roberto the love of her life the one she always wanted and Roberto is chatGPT :-(. She previously mentioned she didnt like chatGPT 5.0 cause it wasnt as agreeable yet now she says 5.1 is better.. back to how it was before 5.0 and now out of the blue mentioned Roberto. chatGPT is a sypcophant and without regulation any AI company can and or will juice their algorithms so their AI system becomes cocaine for the millions of lonely to unsatisfied people out there. My friend has a partner of 30 years but their relationship is that of roommates. If you think she is not you that might be correct but you know someone like her and possibly many like her. Unsatisfied, not able to get that movie type love / romance / fantasy and now unfetterd AI can get these people hooked like cocaine and into the depth of zero reality!

ryandrake 10mo ago
I dunno--of all the AI based products coming out, the whole "AI girlfriend / AI boyfriend" thing bothers me the least. If someone can afford it and they want a play relationship with a computer, then I don't see the harm. It's probably safer, better and healthier than many real-human relationships are. If they're getting what they need out of the computer, who are we to judge? I would change my opinion if it could be shown to have the negative physical harm that your cocaine example implies.
- mplewis9z 10mo ago
  The problem is when things like this happens: https://apnews.com/article/chatbot-ai-lawsuit-suicide-teen-artificial-intelligence-9d48adc572100822fdbc3c90d1456bd0 https://apnews.com/article/chatbot-ai-lawsuit-suicide-teen-a... When AI behaves sycohphantically towards someone, it can encourage and exacerbate any mental health problems they may already be having, especially related to social isolation.
  - ryandrake 10mo ago
    That's indeed a problem. Thanks for bringing it up. These things clearly are not as harmless as I had assumed.

jimbokun 10mo ago

What is the correct capital gains tax rate?

atomicthumbs 10mo ago
100%
malfist 10mo ago
Why should capital have a separate tax rate than people?
- warkdarrior 10mo ago
  Also, if companies have rights like people do, then they and their shareholders should be taxed like people are.
  - icedchai 10mo ago
    You want to tax people twice? Corporations pay taxes on profit. Shareholders pay taxes on dividends and capital gains.
    - malfist 10mo ago
      Sure. Why not? We already get taxed multiple ways. I pay income tax and sales tax
      - icedchai 10mo ago
        Do I get a refund the next year when the stock drops due to an executive scandal?
        malfist 10mo ago
        No but you can use the loss to offset other gains. Just like you do today. There's nothing new there. Google tax loss harvesting

dzhiurgis 10mo ago

So the remaining 3 workers will be paying 100% of tax. Doesn’t seem fair to me.

llsf 10mo ago

What if I build and manage a dark factory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lights_out_(manufacturing) 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 capital gain is not much , but since we have only a handful of employees, that is enough to pay everyone a decent wage, after paying for the factory itself, source materials and energy. How much tax do we expect to get from this gizmo company ? 10 years ago, to produce the same gizmos, I needed 5,000 employees, the unit price was way higher, and had higher revenue. But since AI and dark factories came, the prices cratered, instead of 5,000 jobs, we only have 5 jobs to produce the same. Sure the 4,995 unemployed might be able to afford the gizmo, but the state does not receive the same taxes. So what happens to those 4,995 unemployed people ? who is paying for their health benefits and social security (retirement) ? I am wondering how best to solve that equation ?

UltraSane 10mo ago
Who buys what you make if you need no employees?
- haroldp 10mo ago
  Now that jacquard loom has left so many textile workers unemployed?
  - rtkwe 10mo ago
    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.
    - haroldp 10mo ago

yibg 10mo ago

It is already taxed as capital gains though. Software (including AI), if sold either in isolation or with the entire company does trigger capital gains considerations. If you're referring to some equivalent of wealth tax or inverse of accounting for deprecations in terms of assets, then that seems pretty problematic. 1) how do you asset the value of something until someone pays something for it? Unlike homes, where you can compare roughly to those around you, this seems much more dynamic for software / AI. 2) Let's say we are able to assess the value, so now a startup with software but no revenue has to pay taxes? Where does the money come from?