Bill Gates calls for AI taxes, protected jobs, and a global oversight body
- Bill Gates writes that AI could become either "the greatest equalizer ever invented" or a major source of injustice, and says governments must plan now for a fairer outcome.
- Gates proposes taxing AI tokens and robots, a policy that drew attention in the Hacker News discussion and concern that it would shift inference toward local models.
- The essay calls for some human-reserved jobs and an AI ministry, according to commenters quoting and discussing Gates's proposals.
- Gates argues that cross-border AI risks require a new international organization combining elements of nuclear-weapons inspections, aviation rules, and ozone-protection agreements.
- The Gates Foundation plans to spend its remaining $200 billion over 19 years and says it will use AI for vaccine and medicine discovery, health care, agriculture, and education.
Hacker News 의견들
Gates and Nadella had little to say until this year, after any hope of building a moat around AI was already gone.
Gates has had other distractions. People were talking about these issues before this year whether you heard them or not.
Taxing AI tokens and robots is the first proposal here that I can get behind.
This whole AI craze feels bizarre. I wonder whether people will later view it like the dancing manias of the Middle Ages.
I think it will look more like crypto. People said we'd be left behind and poor if we did not buy in, then never apologized when that did not happen.
I do not think concern about AI is equivalent to mass hysteria. AI is still improving, and we may regret failing to assess what was happening clearly.
The pitch sounds like: this technology will ruin your life, so please fund the people building it. That is why there is such a backlash.
I see the same social-coordination problem as nuclear power and nuclear weapons. We should work out how to manage it rather than reject complex discussion outright.
An AI ministry, "human-reserved" jobs, and token taxes read like satire to me.
Putting somebody in charge of AI issues just passes the buck to a role without enough agency. We need to decide where we want the floodwaters to go, not pile up sandbags.
I do not trust Gates to propose an international organization that audits everyone's AI. His 1990s business conduct and his financial connection to the technology make me question his motives.
Gates only holds a small amount of Microsoft stock and no longer controls the company. His financial interest is not as direct as it was.
A tax on AI tokens would push use toward local LLMs that generate tax-free tokens. That part is a real concern, unlike the satirical proposal to tax every line of code.
I dislike Microsoft and have not used Windows since 1998, but Gates did move technology forward and has done useful malaria work. The essay describes the problems concisely enough to make people think.
If AI is as powerful as claimed, why is preserving jobs the main concern rather than ending hunger and homelessness? It sounds like preserving the working poor as a social institution.
Gates and Musk together have about $1 trillion, or roughly $115 per person across 8.5 billion people. That alone would not end hunger and homelessness.
The Gates Foundation says it will spend its remaining $200 billion over 19 years, using AI for vaccines, medicines, health workers, agriculture, and education. Gates's point about jobs is also about income, dignity, and social connection in the current system.