A “Token Tax” Could Kill the Promise of AI

Lawmakers want to taxA tax is a mandatory payment or charge collected by local, state, and national governments from individuals or businesses to cover the costs of general government services, goods, and activities. artificial intelligence, but the playbook they’re pulling from increasingly resembles a relic of the past.

When it comes to taxing innovation, it’s wise not to reinvent the wheel. But if we want to ensure that AI raises economic growth, we shouldn’t be pursuing tax policies that are stuck in the past and represent some of the worst ideas from the early internet age.

There is no shortage of proposals coming out of Congress to tackle the purported threats AI poses. From Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-VT) AI Sovereign Wealth Fund to Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-MA) call for an excise tax on data centers, there is among some policymakers a fear that if AI becomes a dominant part of our economy, the tax code must have a say in its direction.