As anti-AI sentiment continues to spread, one tech industry leader is now floating an idea for how to deal with it.In a 6,000-word essay posted on his Gates Notes website, billionaire and former Microsoft head Bill Gates explains his fears about artificial intelligence and offers a few proposals for addressing them. Gates also discussed his concerns in a wide-ranging interview with the New York Times.One of the most notable ideas Gates proposes is a new tax on AI, which he calls the "token tax."
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As Gates explains, businesses pay payroll taxes on human employees. However, if AI replaces a worker's job, that same company gets to write the purchase off as a business expense."The tax system nudges you toward replacing people with machines," Gates says, explaining how his previously proposed robot tax would also play a role alongside the AI-specific tax.
Gates says the tax would help slow the impact of AI's growth on labor and that the money it raises could be used for job retraining and building a stronger social safety net. He also says that the tax could be set up to avoid affecting "purely beneficial uses of AI," which he describes as "making medicine and education cheaper."
