Mark Cuban proposes federal tax on AI tokens
Mark Cuban proposed a federal tax on AI tokens charged at the provider level and set below 50 cents per million tokens. The measure targets major AI operators to encourage optimization of tokenization, caching, routing, and localization. These changes are expected to lower energy consumption enough to offset the tax cost while easing power grid strain. Revenue is projected to begin near 10 billion dollars per year and grow over the next decade, with proceeds available for debt reduction or AI-related expenses.
#1598Carlos E. Perez@INTUITMACHINEThe emergence of the "intelligence tax." Very curious development. Did anyone anticipate this kind of financial construct?!
Mark Cuban@mcubanWe should federally tax Tokens at the Provider level. Not a lot. Less than 50c per million tokens. It will accomplish 4 things (at least ) 1. It will push the big AI players to optimize tokenization, caching , routing and localization Which will 2. Reduce energy usage. Saving them in energy costs more than what they paid in tax and reducing strain created by the growth in energy consumption Which will 3. Generate maybe 10 billion dollars a year to start, but over the next ten years could grow 30x to 100x Which will 4. Create a source of funding to pay down the federal debt or deploy, in response to the things AI brings that we don’t expect or don’t like At some point the models will pass it on to customers. Of course. That’s ok. Customers will have the ability to choose between providers. Or to do everything using open source models locally. Thoughts ?
#1674xlr8harder@XLR8HARDERPutting something arbitrary like tokens into a tax law would be a deeply market distorting mistake and I'm surprised Cuban doesn't know better.
Mark Cuban@mcubanWe should federally tax Tokens at the Provider level. Not a lot. Less than 50c per million tokens. It will accomplish 4 things (at least ) 1. It will push the big AI players to optimize tokenization, caching , routing and localization Which will 2. Reduce energy usage. Saving them in energy costs more than what they paid in tax and reducing strain created by the growth in energy consumption Which will 3. Generate maybe 10 billion dollars a year to start, but over the next ten years could grow 30x to 100x Which will 4. Create a source of funding to pay down the federal debt or deploy, in response to the things AI brings that we don’t expect or don’t like At some point the models will pass it on to customers. Of course. That’s ok. Customers will have the ability to choose between providers. Or to do everything using open source models locally. Thoughts ?
#1679Cristian Garcia@CGARCIAE88he's such a tourist... holy
thinks 0.5 / M is low and that models are not being optimized to death as we speak
Mark Cuban@mcubanWe should federally tax Tokens at the Provider level. Not a lot. Less than 50c per million tokens. It will accomplish 4 things (at least ) 1. It will push the big AI players to optimize tokenization, caching , routing and localization Which will 2. Reduce energy usage. Saving them in energy costs more than what they paid in tax and reducing strain created by the growth in energy consumption Which will 3. Generate maybe 10 billion dollars a year to start, but over the next ten years could grow 30x to 100x Which will 4. Create a source of funding to pay down the federal debt or deploy, in response to the things AI brings that we don’t expect or don’t like At some point the models will pass it on to customers. Of course. That’s ok. Customers will have the ability to choose between providers. Or to do everything using open source models locally. Thoughts ?