Comment on Nvidia CEO Foresees AI Competing with Human Intelligence in Five Years
danekrae@lemmy.world 10 months agoAutomation wont stop because of taxes… There needs to be money, for the people that loses jobs to automation. The products wont get cheaper with more automation.
I wouldn’t want to move to a third world country like america, where the low taxes that are paid by the little guy, are used to help the big guy. I’m fine living in a country, where my relatively high taxes can make the country even better.
General_Effort@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Imagine you want to produce something. Maybe you want to bake a couple 10,000 breads over the next few years. Whatever. You could hire 50 guys and buy some simple tools, or you could hire 5 guys and buy some advanced machinery. What do you do?
The typical business will pick the cheaper option. It will replace as much labor with machines as is cost-effective. A few businesses will make a thing out of being inefficient and expensive, like how Rolls-Royce cars are handmade.
If you tax automation, you make the machines more expensive. So, when someone has the choice between using machines or using labor, then it will be labor more often. So, you’re right: It won’t stop automation. You will just have less of it. Productivity will be lower. The country will be always be poorer than without such a tax.
People in such a country will either have to work more hours for the extra labor needed or do with less.
danekrae@lemmy.world 10 months ago
General_Effort@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Yes, so you need more labor to get the same amount of product. Isn’t that what I wrote?
I agree that use of machines can give you economies of scale, which makes large businesses more competitive. So a tax on automation could indirectly benefit smaller businesses at the cost of society. I am not quite sure why a society would want that, though?
unconfirmedsourcesDOTgov@lemmy.sdf.org 10 months ago
It’s surprising that your education in business did not include a section in economic efficiency. My American business education really leaned in on that concept, so maybe that’s where our views diverge.
Having said that, your argument isn’t compelling. Your entire counterargument is, “Your example is not reality”. Can you provide a case study or a real life example of your suggestion in practice?
danekrae@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Oh shit yeah, america known for it’s wealth inequality, homeless and bailing out big business. Hopefully not from Trump University?
Asking for case studies after spouting a hypothetical… “I would like to see documentation, if it’s an argument against the thing, that I didn’t present with any.”
But sure, I’ll just call up my old employer and ask if I can look through his files, because an american can’t believe capitalism isn’t the only way. Hope he remembers me. I will also look through my old phone to see if I can find pictures of the empty automated, highly taxed, leading bakeries (like Pågen) that made the bread with the machines we produced.