BBS: TELESC.NET.BR
Assunto: Can we tax the robots?
De: Mike Powell
Data: Thu, 7 May 2026 09:40:36 -0500
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* Originally in: SF_Reality
Can we tax the robots?
Date:
Thu, 07 May 2026 08:53:04 +0000
Description:
If AI replaces workers, who carries the social contract?
OPINION by Andrew Pery, AI Ethics Evangelist at ABBYY
For over a century, public
finance has rested on a straightforward social contract: individuals work,
earn income, and contribute taxes, and in return, governments provide social
protection and public goods.
That balance is now shifting. The rapid rise of LLMs and AI tools is
challenging the foundations of this arrangement, disrupting how income is
generated. In turn, this is shifting how governments raise revenue.
This will have major effects on government
finances and the way the wider economy works. Without a tax system that
reflects the impact of automation , the consequences could be significant.
Labor incomes may decline sharply, demand for public spending may rise, and
government revenues could come under growing strain.
With rapid change on the horizon, discourse around potential solutions is
increasing. A paper by RAND Corporation cautioned that As capabilities
improve and AI is diffused, we need approaches to help maintain economic
opportunity, social cohesion, and democratic legitimacy. With
pressure on public finances growing, the policy instinct is immediate: tax
the robots. In an interview with Axios, OpenAIs CEO Sam Altman said that AI
superintelligence will be so disruptive that there is a need for a new social
contract.
OpenAI has just released its policy blueprint, Industrial Policy for the
Intelligence Age, which proposes taxes on automated labor. This was seen as
an acknowledgment that AI could reduce the payroll tax base funding Social
Security.
In my opinion, this is not the solution that policymakers might think it is.
The legal architecture of taxation resists the impulse to tax the robots,
because taxpayers must be legal persons, natural or juridical, capable of
holding rights, earning income, and bearing liability.
AI systems are none of these things. They cannot own property, file returns,
or respond to enforcement. Granting legal personality to AI might seem
innovative, but machines cannot be punished or compensate victims. Worse
still, shifting liability to AI could allow the humans and corporations who
design and profit from these systems to escape accountability entirely.
Reimagining the structure of society There are several alternatives to the
idea of a robot tax that may be more practical and more effective as the
structure of the labor market shifts.
Instead of asking whether AI should be taxed like a person, its more useful
to examine how automation reshapes the way value is created.
When machines take over tasks once done by people, income shifts away from
wages and towards company profits. One response is to tax those profits
differently, for example, by estimating the salary of the worker the system
replaces as a basis for taxation, helping replace lost income tax and keeping
revenues stable.
Another option is an automation tax, designed to reflect how much a firm
substitutes machines for human workers. This could be calibrated using
indicators such as revenue per employee or the share of tasks automated
within a business, capturing the shift from labor to capital.
This should be seen less as a penalty on innovation and more as a structural
rebalancing of the tax system. As AI makes companies more productive, more of
the money flows to businesses rather than workers.
If governments continue to rely on wage taxes while fewer people earn wages,
the system will stop working properly. Changing how profits are taxed helps
ensure tax revenue continues to align with where the money is actually being
made.
Another possible approach is a guaranteed annual income, funded by companies
that benefit most from AI-driven profits to share the gains of automation
more fairly.
A guaranteed annual income may be augmented by creating an AI dividend fund,
which would consist of a nominal compute levy on the use of AI applications
in commercial settings, applied, for example, to AI agents that replace human
labor.
The proceeds of the AI dividend fund would be distributed proportionately as
direct payments to give people breathing room to retrain their skills and
re-orient their lives.
Combined with strong retraining programs, these policies do more than just
soften the impact of change - they help support an economy that can adjust
more easily and better handle future change.
An innovative example is the Singapore Government's recent offer of free
premium access to AI courses, to help its citizens acquire skills for the AI
economy.
The benefits of the AI economy accrue disproportionately to AI developers and
to corporations that deploy them. Therefore, common sense would dictate that
they ought to assume the responsibility for transitioning workers to the
realities of the AI economy.
Given the disproportionate benefits that AI delivers to developers and
corporations, there must be corresponding fiduciary duties imposed that level
the playing field and provide a path for an equitable and sustainable
distribution of its wealth effects. The challenge is institutional inertia
The debate over AI often centers on the risk of innovation. But the bigger
risk may be that institutions are too slow to adapt.
Tax systems tend to evolve gradually, but technological revolutions do not.
If policymakers wait until wages have clearly fallen and the effects are
fully visible, they will be forced to respond in the middle of a crisis -
when theres little time to design good policy.
If automation leads to huge productivity gains but also leaves many people
financially insecure, redistribution ceases to be a political choice and
becomes a means of maintaining economic stability.
The real challenge is not whether we can tax AI. It is whether we can
reimagine how the system works before change is forced upon us. That means
anticipating how value creation is shifting, and adjusting the foundations of
public finance accordingly.
It is not just about managing the impact of AI, but getting ahead of it. If
policymakers act early, they can shape a system that shares the benefits of
automation while maintaining stability. Alternatively, waiting risks being
forced into rushed decisions.
Finally, it is important to consider that the AI economy knows no boundaries.
It inherently transcends traditional notions of trade relationships and
taxation schemes based on the exchange of tangible goods and services.
Thats why AI taxation must be aligned globally to prevent companies just
moving to low-tax jurisdictions, and to help prevent a growing wealth gap
that could destabilize the global economy.
This article was produced as part of TechRadar Pro
Perspectives , our channel to feature the best and brightest minds in the
technology industry today.
The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily
those of TechRadarPro or Future plc. If you are interested in contributing
find out more here: https://www.techradar.com/pro/perspectives-how-to-submit
Link to news story:
https://www.techradar.com/pro/can-we-tax-the-robots
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