
The Real Threat of Artificial Intelligence - darod
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/24/opinion/sunday/artificial-intelligence-economic-inequality.html
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T-A
_if most countries will not be able to tax ultra-profitable A.I. companies to
subsidize their workers, what options will they have? I foresee only one:
Unless they wish to plunge their people into poverty, they will be forced to
negotiate with whichever country supplies most of their A.I. software — China
or the United States — to essentially become that country’s economic
dependent, taking in welfare subsidies in exchange for letting the “parent”
nation’s A.I. companies continue to profit from the dependent country’s users_

Or they could just require that services targeting their residents be provided
by locally incorporated and taxed subsidiaries. China itself already does so
with its Great Firewall and requirements that foreign companies partner with
local ones; Russia's rule that personal data be kept on servers in the country
is another example.

In that light, the "real threat" is nationalization and compartmentalization
of the once global network as its growing economic importance makes a hands-
off approach politically untenable.

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maxander
Russia and China are giants, though, with substantial economic clout- and,
further, it's not clear that measures like those would actually solve the
capital flow problems the article describes. If you're a small country like
Belgium or Finland, your realistic options will be even more limited.

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T-A
Unless you happen to be a member of the world's largest common market. Germany
alone has 3x the GDP of Russia.

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nthcolumn
"Imagine how much money a company like Uber would make if it used only robot
drivers." Who in an unemployed world would these robots be driving about? The
handful of super rich who will prefer to drive their antique sportscar on
empty roads?

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crb002
AI means death of the personal income tax. It puts AI work at an unfair tax
advantage.

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avmich
Always wondered why somebody who can't earn money working don't just go to
land and start raising basic necessities.

I assume you can be quite productive today - even without money, using
knowledge - and other schemes of cooperations could emerge.

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omgwtfbyobbq
They could be productive, no question about that. Ten years ago, I was of the
opinion that it's hard/expensive to go off-grid/do your own thing. Now, it's
remarkably inexpensive. Without a decent chunk of savings, it's still really
hard to pay for everything until you can get up to speed.

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omgwtfbyobbq
Great article! I feel like they're using AI as a catchall for
AI/automation/etc..., but there isn't a lot of room to hash things out in an
editorial.

