This whole thing is just stupid.
Did we get angry when computers cut accounting staff by 75% because one person and QuickBooks can do the job of a whole fleet of people? No. AI will change jobs in the same way computerization changed jobs. The same way the combine changed farming and the cotton gin changed textiles.
What we need to ACTUALLY BE WORRIED ABOUT is what we failed to be concerned with last time. The productivity increase and job elimination just went to the fucking top of the ladder. If that happens again we will have massive unemployment.
We need to tax the shit out of companies using AI to replace humans, and start setting up the infrastructure for the inevitable UBI that further automation will require.
Universal basic income, have AI and automated roles taxed as people. Self checkout? Well you still have the pay the tax as if that was an employee.
I disagree. We shouldn’t be disincentivizing innovation. Taxes on business and the wealthy should increase regardless of their use of automation.
Why not? There’s lots of stuff that could be considered innovation that is intentionally stifled due to competition laws or security concerns.
I don’t disagree with you entirely but if Walmart stopped employing 95% of their staff tomorrow due to self checkouts and stocking robots they should have to continue paying taxes for those roles because the newly unemployed will need government support.
The end game is universal basic income and that can only be sustainable with these types of policies.
A lot of it is only cost-cutting disguised as innovation though. Some jobs, like accounting, doesn’t really suffer from removing the human element, but compare that to the chatbot hellscape that customer service has become. We need to be VERY conscious of what we “innovate” and guide the development with taxation and laws.
