OpenAI's Sam Altman and Anthropic's Dario Amodei have sparked a necessary debate: artificial intelligence will not only transform productivity but could also destroy jobs on a global scale. Their proposals include universal basic income, reduced working hours, and capital taxes—measures that are already part of the political and social dialogue in Europe.
The technical challenge of redistributing algorithmic productivity 🤖
The implementation of these ideas clashes with the decentralized nature of AI development. While generative models multiply efficiency in sectors such as programming or design, taxing automated capital would require global collection and monitoring mechanisms. Without an adapted fiscal architecture, universal basic income could be unsustainable, and reduced working hours an illusion if the labor market fragments into specific tasks managed by algorithms.
The irony of demanding taxes when you own the machine 😏
It is curious that those who build the systems that will take our jobs are now the prophets of state charity. It is as if the pirate offered insurance against looting after sinking your ship. While Altman and Amodei suggest taxing capital, their companies raise multi-million dollar investments to accelerate automation. Next time, perhaps they will propose a tax on the air we breathe.