Moore's Law for Everything (2021)
Sam Altman argues that AI will lead to a massive shift in wealth from labor to capital, necessitating new public policies like wealth redistribution. He suggests that taxing capital and land will be essential to ensure society benefits from the coming AI-driven economic revolution.
Why it matters
It outlines the economic philosophy of a major AI industry leader, influencing debates on universal basic income and AI regulation.
My work at OpenAI reminds me every day about the magnitude of the socioeconomic change that is coming sooner than most people believe. Software that can think and learn will do more and more of the work that people now do. Even more power will shift from labor to capital. If public policy doesn’t adapt accordingly, most people will end up worse off than they are today.
We need to design a system that embraces this technological future and taxes the assets that will make up most of the value in that world–companies and land–in order to fairly distribute some of the coming wealth. Doing so can make the society of the future much less divisive and enable everyone to participate in its gains.
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