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If A.I. starts to replace jobs en masse I propose we tax the companies profiting from this at a rate of 95% so we can finance welfare and Universal Basic Income
by hn_submit 1mo ago
If A.I. starts to replace jobs en masse I propose we tax the companies profiting from this at a rate of 95% so we can finance welfare and Universal Basic Income schemes.
We need to be aware that said companies and the people behind them will do anything in their power, including bribing politicians, to prevent this and to keep the money they believe are they're entitled to.
I even believe the Big Tech bigwigs have long foreseen this and are quietly prodding our society towards an authoritarian regime where people have no say so they can keep their moonies.
- Geezus_42 1mo ago> I even believe the Big Tech bigwigs have long foreseen this and are quietly prodding our society towards an authoritarian regime where people have no say so they can keep their moonies. That's been obvious for a while.
- adamtaylor_13 1mo agoI hear this repeated a lot, but I'm skeptical they're that smart. Hanlon's razor would say it's just the system doing what the system does. I do not believe Zuck, Musk, or any of the other boogeyman in Silicon Valley are capable of that level of deception and manipulation. I find it much more plausible that when trying to build world-changing businesses and products you squish, displace, and flip tables when you didn't really intend to.
- hn_submit 1mo agoYou don't need an exceptional IQ to deduce that useful A.I. will lead to an enormous concentration of wealth at a few companies and individuals. In fact, it's the reason current A.I. companies have valuations in the Trillions.
- senordevnyc 1mo agoThen it was exceedingly stupid for Altman to fuck up his grand master scheme by neglecting to take any equity in OpenAI.
- Geezus_42 1mo agoBecause he won't make billions off it in some indirect manner?
- jaynetics 1mo agoI like the thought, but it seems daunting. What about global competition? If some other countries have few or no such taxes, how do you deal with that? Do you outlaw the outsourcing of all white collar work? Outlaw all remote work as well? Will you have to suppress a local black market for intellectual labor, built on self-hosted open source models?
- moomin 1mo agoWhilst the objections you raise are valid, in the face of the country being destroyed if you don’t, the equation’s rather different. What does it matter if China is dominant if you’re better off living in the US?
- latexr 1mo ago> I even believe the Big Tech bigwigs have long foreseen this and are quietly prodding our society towards an authoritarian regime where people have no say so they can keep their moonies. “Quietly”? They’re not even subtle about it! Hard to get those types of news here, though, as submissions in that direction tend to be heavily flagged, no matter how tame the comments. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49411762 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49411762
- zombot 1mo ago> If A.I. starts to replace jobs en masse But then nobody will have money to buy anything anymore, then nobody will have money to pay the AI companies, and then they won't have any money. The jobless will starve to death and then those who have their food made by robots will reign over an empty world where money has become meaningless. LLMs and robots don't eat money, they eat electricity.
- snovv_crash 1mo agoPaperclippers but in slow motion with the economy in the loop.
- RivieraKid 1mo agoIf you really simplify how this works: Owners of capital use the capital in combination with workers to produces goods and services. They give half of the production to the workers and keep the other half. If AI replaces workers, the owners of capital will simply keep all of the production to themselves. So they would be better off. If I have a construction company, I could just lay off the workers and distribute the surplus houses to myself and other owners. There are nuances to this of course, but this is a point that most people miss.
- OccamsMirror 1mo agoWith that many people out of work, you may struggle to hold on to that capital.
- marmarama 1mo agoThat's where the fully automated weapons systems come in. Robotics and AI give the megalomaniacs of the world both a reason and the means to kill everyone with impunity. The rest of the 21st century is going to be really messed up.
- zombot 1mo agoIf it's all robots and LLMs, then it will be the LLM provider and the robot provider who owns these things. Should you be of a different opinion, good luck in court when the judicial LLM is run by the same company you want to sue. If LLMs and robots produce all things, what would anyone still need you for?
- RivieraKid 1mo agoBut it's impossible to measure how does a company or a person benefit from AI. The economy is a complex system. A construction company may benefit more than a robot-making company. The right approach could be to raise the general tax level, possibly increase the weight of wealth taxes, and redistribute. That said, there will be enough jobs for the foreseeable future. Any job that has some physical component - hospital staff, barber, judge, bartender - won't be replaced within the next 2 decades. Many comfortable jobs, typically someone who's sitting behind a computer at home or in the office, could get replaced. That would be bad for many people including me, but if you think about it, it would be a net good thing. I'm currently leaning towards "AI would be somewhat bad or at best neutral for me, but significantly good for the society".
- Tepix 1mo ago> But it's impossible to measure how does a company or a person benefit from AI. I think he was proposing taxing the companies offering AI. > Re: AI killing jobs where you sit behind a desk The robots aren't far behind.
- RivieraKid 1mo agoCompanies offering AI will capture just a tiny slice of the value created by AI. So the tax would generate negligible revenue. I think humanoids capable of replacing a nurse for example are 20+ years away. But I could be wrong and hope I am.
- eieies 1mo agoHumanoids replacing a nurse Hahahha. Wow you are in deep. I feel for people like you - you’ve lost all sight of reality. It’s sad.
- RivieraKid 1mo agoMe saying that humanoid robots won't replace nurses within the next 2 decades is sad? Doesn't make any sense.
- zx8080 1mo agoAnyone seriously trust in the fairytale that the rich and powerful gives 95% of their profit back to customers? It's not really what they've built their business empires for.
- hn_submit 1mo agoThe U.S. had a top tax tier of 95% in de 1940's.
- bsenftner 1mo agoWhich may as well be a fairy tale, not going to happen ever again. That was an anomaly.
- randcraw 1mo agoAnd there were an unimaginable number of tax loopholes available back then that ultimately reduced the individual tax rate enormously. You just had to reinvest your income in a multitude of increasingly bizarre tax dodges devised by increasingly byzantine tax laws.
- chasd00 1mo agoEven if that was possible today it would just mean that money goes to the government not the people. Most of it would flow overseas, every single entity in the planet would come begging with their hand out. Actual citizens would be very last on the list. Probably the only feasible thing would be to set income tax to zero. However, half the nation doesn’t pay income tax anyway (100% refund).
- zx8080 1mo agoIt was a war tax. Not to just share it with people.
- iLoveOncall 1mo agoDoes anyone still believe that AI will replace jobs? I get further proof every day that it never will.
- rickydroll 1mo agoI agree with you that it probably won't replace jobs, but it will let you get more done in less time. I suspect, based on some of the stuff I've read recently, that two days with AI assistance are as exhausting/wearing as five days without, because you're trying to keep up with AI speed (another argument for slower LLMs on a local machine). Unfortunately, I think we will also see corporate expectations that if you can get your previously normal amount of work done in two days, commonly you should be given more work. They don't need to hire that person or a replacement person for the disloyal/weak person who bailed, claiming they were overloaded.
- iLoveOncall 1mo agoIt actually leads to more done in more time at the moment. For things that carry actual value at least. For example your AI generated code feels very productive and "more done in less time", until you have to spend 3 times as much reviewing it, and supporting it long term compared to code written before AI. People mistake instant gratification for long term productivity gains.
- rickydroll 1mo agoWell, if you throw a long-winded prompt over a fence and tell the agents to work it out on their own, yeah, you will spend a lot of time reviewing it. But if you use it as a form of pair programming and keep your scope of focus constrained, review time is built into your effort. Also, keep in mind that my perspective is colored by the fact that I can't type much, and coding by keyboard is pretty much off the table for me. And last, as I pointed out elsewhere, LLMs are useful for more things than writing code, and administrative work can be handled easily with the current generation of LLMs.
- 1mo ago
- bsenftner 1mo agoUBI is a farce, and is the wealth class's yet another lever to control people. UBI will not be "universal", not in this human civilization of hyper stratification. Conditions will be placed, and only certain ethnicity, and somehow certain people will receive two to ten times as much as others. If this proposed and impossible gift farce happens at all. How gullible are you to think this UBI concept has anything but wishes and propagandists behind it?
- hn_submit 1mo agoDo you believe people will be able to sustain their incomes at current levels if A.I. does most of the work? Maybe by some magical means they will, but I'm far from sure that the majority will be able to stay above the poverty line.
- dgellow 1mo agoIf that’s the case the solution is to ban or very strictly regulate those AI companies having such a massive level of externalities. Like any other industry that would put the whole world economy at risk. Keeping them running and patching the minimum of damage with a UBI is just absurd. If the impact on the job market is as bad as what the AI leaders say, which is extremely bad, it’s a national security risk level for pretty much all developed economies. We would absolutely never accept that in any other domain
- hn_submit 1mo agoThe current level of A.I. is akin to an idiot-savant and even today's A.I. companies are raking in half a trillion dollars in revenue. If "real" reasoning A.I. comes along their income could be in the trillions every year!! If you believe politicians will be able to regulate companies with such financial clout you're living in a fairy tale. These companies will be able to hold the U.S. government hostage.
- bsenftner 1mo ago> Do you believe people will be able to sustain their incomes at current levels if A.I. does most of the work? Does not matter, UBI will make the situation worse. And that "AI does most the work" is yet another fairytale. AI does the easy work, leaving only the much more difficult and the controversial work, exactly the work nobody wants to do, due to the responsibility attached. So, AI will do that, and AI will do that with a preference for the wealth class.
- hgoel 1mo agoExpecting the modern American people to support any welfare system is a fairy tale. A large chunk of them will be too busy worrying about the possibility of even one undeserving person benefiting even if it means thousands starve to death.
- hn_submit 1mo agoSimilar to the uproar about Obamacare where the people with little or no coverage were protesting that it limited their choice of health care professionals? The right-wing will probably brand welfare and UBI "socialism" to defile it and the people on poverty row will be protesting that they don't want it because it will lead to higher-taxes. It's sad that the most vulnerable people are being duped into believing these malicious lies.
- hgoel 1mo agoYes, there's that, and also things like shameless empty nesters suggesting that they shouldn't have to pay taxes that support the education system.
- drTobiasFunke 1mo agoIf AI replaced all jobs, then how are those companies turning a profit? I dont understand this. Humans need to spend money and buy products for all the companies to make money. Do we imagine a parallel economy of agents spending money and humans are out of this?
- timacles 1mo agoA rich people only economy.
- tarpitt 1mo agoYou and what army? Killbots, mow down these protesters. Too late