The restructuring would generate hundreds of billions of dollars.
We favor capital gains at a lower rate when AI is helping capital and dis-advantaging labor. All income taxes should be at the same rate, capital gains or ordinary incomes. Generate hundreds of billions of dollars that help the people who are impacted by AI. Easy idea, a very populist idea.
We will need a new tax code for the wealth AI creates https://ft.trib.al/999yn2u
Positive users endorse Khosla's proposal for equal capital gains and income taxes to fund AI-displaced workers as smart policy, while negative users attack him personally as a grifter or leech pushing selfish motives.
I'm a technology optimist. I’ve spent four decades studying disruptive innovation, from the microprocessor, the internet, mobile phones to OpenAI. I'm certain AI will do 80% of the economically valuable work humans do today, for 80% of all jobs, faster than most believe. The question isn't whether mass underemployment arrives, but whether we have a policy framework ready. Right now we don't.
We will need a new tax code for the wealth AI creates https://ft.trib.al/999yn2u
And I am a realist who understands computing and AI deeply, having worked in the field for over five decades - where I continue to work - both witnessing the changes as well as inventing things that made those changes possible.
AI is useful.
But I’m certain AI will not do 80% of the economically valuable work humans do today, for 80% of all jobs.
I'm a technology optimist. I’ve spent four decades studying disruptive innovation, from the microprocessor, the internet, mobile phones to OpenAI. I'm certain AI will do 80% of the economically valuable work humans do today, for 80% of all jobs, faster than most believe. The question isn't whether mass underemployment arrives, but whether we have a policy framework ready. Right now we don't.
AI is less popular than ICE or congress. We should wake up and address people's concern outside of tech or we will get @AOC for President instead of AI progress and adoption! And this will be amplified by Chinese government interference to fan the flames and slow US AI progress.
We will need a new tax code for the wealth AI creates https://ft.trib.al/999yn2u
Lower capital gains tax rates is redistribution. Only upward redistribution. AI will capital juice returns further and compress labor share of income more. Why not equalize the two rates? $400B in tax savings that can be used to help people who are impacted by AI?
We will need a new tax code for the wealth AI creates https://ft.trib.al/999yn2u
Post 2028, eliminate preferential capital gains treatment and tax it as ordinary income. No principled argument survives in a world of AI-boosted capital returns. This could generate approximately $400B per year. These collections should flow first to those whose employment is impacted by AI. Any remainder should rebate the income tax of the ~75M Americans earning under $75,000. This isn't redistribution. It rebalances a tax code that was already redistributing, just upward.
The right response requires radical simplicity and political achievability. Tax changes should be revenue neutral and backed by 75M voters, roughly the number who voted for Trump.
Post 2030, add token taxes of 20% on AI compute and robotic labor substitution. I'm not a fan of innovation taxes. But if AI displaces the payroll base, a compute-usage levy is the corrective: an estimated $150-200B per year within five years.
Post 2028, eliminate preferential capital gains treatment and tax it as ordinary income. No principled argument survives in a world of AI-boosted capital returns. This could generate approximately $400B per year. These collections should flow first to those whose employment is impacted by AI. Any remainder should rebate the income tax of the ~75M Americans earning under $75,000. This isn't redistribution. It rebalances a tax code that was already redistributing, just upward.
None of this requires new institutions, just replacing a 1950s tax code with one designed for the 2030s. Capitalism operates by permission of democracy. The future utopia is ours to invent. The dystopia is ours to choose.
AI will make it easy for 50M Americans to be re-employed as micro-entrepreneurs by 2035, with AI handling finance, legal, marketing and taxes so each can pursue their craft. The human touch, provenance-rich and artisanal, will be valued over pure utility.
AI will make it easy for 50M Americans to be re-employed as micro-entrepreneurs by 2035, with AI handling finance, legal, marketing and taxes so each can pursue their craft. The human touch, provenance-rich and artisanal, will be valued over pure utility.
A bold 2028 candidate could adopt this tax-neutral platform: accelerate AI, help most Americans, energise a frightened voter base. Beyond 2035, AI creates enormous corporate wealth. The question is who owns it. A sovereign fund with ownership of AI companies makes every American a capital owner, not a bystander to the AI economy.
The right response requires radical simplicity and political achievability. Tax changes should be revenue neutral and backed by 75M voters, roughly the number who voted for Trump.
I'm a technology optimist. I’ve spent four decades studying disruptive innovation, from the microprocessor, the internet, mobile phones to OpenAI. I'm certain AI will do 80% of the economically valuable work humans do today, for 80% of all jobs, faster than most believe. The question isn't whether mass underemployment arrives, but whether we have a policy framework ready. Right now we don't.
A bold 2028 candidate could adopt this tax-neutral platform: accelerate AI, help most Americans, energise a frightened voter base. Beyond 2035, AI creates enormous corporate wealth. The question is who owns it. A sovereign fund with ownership of AI companies makes every American a capital owner, not a bystander to the AI economy.
Make basic needs expertise near-free for everyone. When expertise becomes near-free, the advantage of affording doctors, tutors and lawyers collapses. An equalisation no redistribution scheme has achieved.
@Grady_Booch The other 80% is AL. Artificial Labour
@vkhosla
And I am a realist who understands computing and AI deeply, having worked in the field for over five decades - where I continue to work - both witnessing the changes as well as inventing things that made those changes possible.
AI is useful.
But I’m certain AI will not do 80% of the economically valuable work humans do today, for 80% of all jobs.
Make basic needs expertise near-free for everyone. When expertise becomes near-free, the advantage of affording doctors, tutors and lawyers collapses. An equalisation no redistribution scheme has achieved.
@vkhosla It takes $7B to build Francis Scott Key Bridge in Maryland, while the same one prbly costs 1/10 in China. How abt tunnel from Sacramento to Reno, or from Saratoga to Santa Cruz, to save fuel and environment? How abt CA high speed rail? Let’s see if AI can solve these problems
@vkhosla Policies will definitely need to be in place and we should be proactive (vs our usual reactivity to change)...
Saying that, I think the "capacity" of these tools will move faster than "adoption" of the capabilities across so many areas. I don't think it's a 12 month window, etc.
@rohitsabu_ @vkhosla One of the more based takes of all of this. Most of the services and goods are to support other things we need because of the way the economy is setup.
We have automated 99% of the physical and intellectual labor that we did 250 years ago. No one hand copies documents anymore, no one does accounting by hand, no one reaps the wheat fields by hand. And yet, there is no unemployment as a result of this.
I see no reason to believe that in the future, we will not automate 99% of the physical and intellectual labor we do now, but again, there is no reason to believe that that will result in any more unemployment than we have today.
The limit to the number of jobs is not the amount of work we have to do. The limit to the amount of work we can get done is the number of minds and machines and hands we have available.
@Grady_Booch IMO - our ambitions will scale with our abilities like they *always have*, ultimately out into space. If they do not, civilization will collapse and artificial intelligence will be a glass ceiling we cannot break through.
@vkhosla @AOC It's all about gasoline price anyway.
Promise people cheap electricity. If there is a datacenter around
That's easy to say when you've made it. For folks struggling through building businesses, to realise those capital gains, that is a kick in the teeth.
Switzerland has 0 capital gains and low taxes, yet it works. You just need a governing class who is working for the country, not to get re-elected.
The restructuring would generate hundreds of billions of dollars.
We favor capital gains at a lower rate when AI is helping capital and dis-advantaging labor. All income taxes should be at the same rate, capital gains or ordinary incomes. Generate hundreds of billions of dollars that help the people who are impacted by AI. Easy idea, a very populist idea.
We will need a new tax code for the wealth AI creates https://ft.trib.al/999yn2u
