Opinion: AI will create enough wealth to pay every American $13,500 a year

In the next ten years, artificial intelligence will create such wealth that every adult in the United States will be able to receive $13,500 a year. This was stated by Sam Altman, co-founder and president of the nonprofit OpenAI.

AI is going to change a lot of things. The world is going to get phenomenally wealthy.

I wrote about what I think will happen, and an idea for how we could change our economic system in light of it:https://t.co/UjH6IFa1AW

— Sam Altman (@sama) March 16, 2021

In his view, future government revenues will come primarily from corporations and land. Governments will tax capital rather than labor, and these funds should be distributed among citizens, according to OpenAI President Sam Altman.

In his article, Altman proposed creating a fund that would levy a tax equal to 2.5% of large companies’ market value in the form of stock, and 2.5% of the value of all land in cash.

According to his calculations, the value of American corporations and private land — $50 trillion and $30 trillion respectively — will “roughly double” over the coming decade. Under such a system, 250 million American adults would begin receiving $13,500 a year within ten years.

“This dividend could be much higher if AI accelerates growth. But even if that does not happen, $13,500 will have far greater purchasing power than today, because technologies will significantly reduce the cost of goods and services,” Altman wrote.

He cautions that amid current political tensions there remains a contentious question whether lawmakers will push such a plan through, especially over the next decade.

Earlier in March, the National Security Commission on AI proposed to double expenditures on AI R&D by 2026, calling $40 billion in investments “a modest upfront contribution for future breakthroughs”.

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