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by mullingitover 64 days ago
The article is saying that the solution here isn’t to just throw up our hands and commit suicide as a nation, it’s to simply tax the AI, punishing the negative externality.

Seems like the obvious answer to the prisoner’s dilemma problem where everyone wants to lay off their workforce, but expects that they’ll be the only ones to get this bright idea.
2 comments
542458 64 days ago
What’s a bit hard for me to rationalize here is why are market shifts considered a negative externality here? We didn’t tax moulding machines because they reduced the demand for sculptors.

Don’t get me wrong, I think the end goal of “Tax those who can pay for it to build a social safety net” is reasonable, I just don’t buy the “negative externalities” argument.

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array_key_first 63 days ago
Well because if you don't do something then everyone loses their jobs, and then there's no more consumers, and then the economy implodes, and then everyone dies, including the people utilitizing AI.

It's kind of similar to how nobles fucked themselves in the middle ages. One would think having a lot of serfs is good, but no actually. Having a functioning economy would be better, and in the long run feudal economies stagnated.

And that's why I, today, am effectively much more rich than a feudal lord.

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mullingitover 63 days ago
> We didn’t tax moulding machines because they reduced the demand for sculptors.

AI isn't promising to be one machine, it's promising to be a general intelligence that could potentially send unemployment over 50%. We're talking about every truck driver, every warehouse worker, basically everyone who sits in front of a screen for a living being unemployed. This really changes things from 'social safety net' to 'prevent civil unrest that threatens continuity of government.'

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friendzis 64 days ago
> it’s to simply tax the AI, punishing the negative externality.

That "simply" is working overtime here.

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