Should we tax 'professional' use of AI?

[Jim Audiomisc]

It looks like there will be a steady rise in the use of AI to replace work done by human employees. That may be good for the 'owner' of the AI as they garner the income whilst not having to pay anyone for the 'work'. But means not only lost jobs, but lost wages and tax.

So should we tax the 'professional' use of AI to avoid the spin-off losses and problems it may otherwise produce for many people?

 

[Seeker_UK]

What does ChatGPT reckon?

 

[Bananahead]

Should all technology that replaces workers be taxed?

 

[Jim Audiomisc]

Should all technology that replaces workers be taxed?

Given that AI *uses* knowledge generated by others or founded on that, it is akin to a 'slave' because it works for no pay.

Machinery that generates a *physical* produce that is sold usually tends to incur some form of VAT or sales tax. Similarly, use of 'Intellectual Property' often incurs some form of fee to the people who thought up that content. The question here is that we now have what presents as a 'new approach' which is already impacting on real people's ability to make a living. IIUC actors and others have already been arguing about their abilites being 'faked' by AI, etc, without payment to them.

So the alternative to a tax might be a need to pay something to everyone whose efforts were hoovered into the AI's 'knowledge base'. If not via a tax, how to do that?

I suspect that if AI really is a success in performance terms, this will, indeed, become a problem for more people than realise it as yet. Worth thinking about rather than not bothering.

 

[matt j]

We should probably tax it whilst we can, before it starts taxing us...