Vinod Khosla: We will need a new tax code for the wealth AI creates

Vinod Khosla: We will need a new tax code for the wealth AI creates(ft.com)

3 points by marojejian 21 days ago | 2 comments

marojejian 21 days ago |

archive https://archive.is/K5s2A#selection-1457.0-1457.12

OK, it's temping for me to make this comment about Vinod and perceptions of his past actions. But he's not important in the larger picture, and this issue definitely is.

Overall, we absolutely need to devote a lot of energy and discussion to this question now, since there are a lot of options, and building consensus and implementing anything smoothly will be slow. If we wait too long, we tempt disaster due to factors like unrest or missing the window of control. For example, the world is getting populist leaders now because we failed to address the inequality of growth in the last 30 years. So the more intelligent, powerful people raise this issue now, the better.

I'm not sure about each of these options yet. Definitely the change to capital gains makes sense (cough, OK I must gesture here at the carried interest rule for a moment...).

Sovereign wealth funds scare me. A fundamental approach where the government owns and directs capital sets up the wrong incentives. Over time, it risks privileging the elite, or at best the leviathan, over the median individual.

Rather, my gut is to pursue a broader distribution of wealth & power, e.g. by:

1) reducing the barriers to capital value, e.g. through promoting open source software, and eroding software IP

2) creating a systemic forcing function reducing inequality. The ideal one would be progressive wealth tax. Of course this is incredibly difficult in practice.

3) creating friction agains large corporations. this would need to be a totally new approach to antitrust. beyond eroding IP, I'm not sure of the best way to do this generally, even in ideal terms (perhaps progressive taxes on capital value appreciation?)

anovikov 21 days ago | |

There is a perception of inequality of growth, but it is in fact, a false perception. Truth is, it is globalisation. Inequality of income in the world has shrunk, even as inequality of income in almost all countries has increased, because that was more than counterbalanced by decreased inequality between countries. There's very little that can be done about it, because inequality between countries was brought about by factors that are no longer present and are impractical and/or immoral to bring back (colonialism, Curse of Ham, etc).