AI Breaks It, AI Buys It

Four Ways to Make Technology Pay for Job Displacement

In my last post (From Dust Bowl to Digital Displacement) I raised the specter of AI creating massive job loss.

So, how do we pay for job retraining or even the hallelujah state promised by AI CEOs of finding our bliss with self-actualizing pursuits that don't necessarily have a paycheck attached?

Well, we've all seen the signs when browsing in a retailer with potentially fragile items that read, "You break it, you buy it." I thought a similar dose of medicine should be applied to this instance as well: If AI is displacing workers, then it makes sense that AI foots the bill for this societal problem.

Here are a four ways we might achieve that.

The Hugo Option

Nationalization.  Pull a Hugo Chavez and nationalize the AI companies – or perhaps “THE” AI company that rises to become the commanding market owner (as many prognosticators suspect will happen). While in this scenario all funds flow to the government, this won’t happen in a million years, though with the current administration in place nothing is beyond the realm of possibility.

The Wonka Option

A Golden Share.  Kind of a riff on Willy Wonka here – or if you're old school, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, because there's precedence from the Presidential Palace!  This near cousin of the golden ticket is already taking place, so it's a definite possibility.  In this scenario, the government takes an ownership share (the Golden Share) and a shareholder voice in the AI companies – pocketing dividends to redistribute across society while helping guide the direction of the companies.

This Little Piggy Option

Increase corporate taxes.  Can you hear that squeal? That's the collective piggies of the corporate world when you try to raise taxes. In this case, you'd increase tax rates on AI companies and those using AI – which mean all companies (squeal!) – so basically the bogyman claims a much bigger slice of the pie.  Well, you all know how popular this will be (squeal!) It would take a real fight, though in a landscape of Depression-like unemployment it just might be feasible (squeal).

The Reverse Acquihire Option

Licensing.  I’ve been fascinated by how big tech companies are creatively bypassing regulatory overview of acquisitions by pursuing what’s being called “reverse acquihires.” (I know, a curious and typically Silicon Valley-esque name construction if ever there were one.) 

Here's how that works: a company hires a target acquisition’s leadership and then licenses its technology, rather than the old humdrum method of acquiring its stock.  This got me to thinking:  Perhaps AI companies should pay for a license to operate in the public domain.  It’s like a tax, but more palatable, with fully 99% less squeal.  Plus, a license has lots of terms and conditions (as you’ve likely noticed every time you’ve checked a box to use an app) and can be revoked.  So perhaps revenues generated from licenses could be funneled to citizens.

(After I wrote this, the U.S. government gave Nvidia and AMD an export license to sell their AI chips to China in exchange for a 15% cut of sales, so this option doesn't seem so farfetched. From this action alone, billions of dollars will flow into the U.S. Treasury.)

Now I could be a Chicken Little (aka Henny Penny) – predicting the sky is falling while still looking up and admiring the beauty of the clouds.  But I think the takes presented here and in last week's post fall somewhere on the continuum of how our work world is going to dramatically change because of AI.

Which begs another question:  What do you, Dear Reader, think will happen to the way we work and earn our living in an Age of AI?

Godspeed, friends.

Russ

💬 Think About It

"While we are actually subjected to them, the 'moods' and 'spirits' of nature point no morals. Overwhelming gaiety, insupportable grandeur, sombre desolation are flung at you. Make what you can of them, if you must make at all. The only imperative that nature utters is, 'Look. Listen. Attend.”’ C.S. Lewis

💥 Quick Hits

•            AI tastes its first course of consulting, and it's delicious – It appears that AI, with an assist from the President, is already taking a bite out of consulting. Thanks to reader Kevin Winslow for sharing this with us. (From Axios)

•            There's something irresistible about these awards – They're called the "Tiny Awards," and they honor the best of the small, poetic, creative, handmade, noncommercial web. Just 10 highly original finalists, with titles such as 10,000 Drum Machines and Traffic cam photobooth – which you can see (and vote on) here.

•            PBS goes punk: So, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is gone, leaving PBS and NPR (and us) to fill their coffers in other ways. Enter Two Crow Collective, which opted to create a cause marketing campaign for PBS that looks decidedly not like...PBS. I loved it and bought myself a t-shirt. You can keep husband-wife of Two Crow Collective busy AND float PBS's boat by buying some of this branded merch yourself. (Note: Some of the collection is currently sold out; we're told they will begin taking orders again in mid-August, so any day now...)

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