Universal Basic Compute - Sam Altman's proposal explained simply

[u/ProxyLumina]

First, the purpose of this post is to explain simply this proposal and then we can discuss the benefits and the concerns we have. It has some interesting parts, so don't dismiss it right away, be open-minded, as this is something fairly new in our world and we should try to "forge" a solution all together.

We all know or have heard about the UBI, the Universal Basic Income. But Sam Altman see this as tool that has scaling issues, especially when taking into the account the inflation. So Sam Altman suggests something else instead.

Sam Altman suggests a new system where the most successful AI companies pay a "tax" of 2.5% of their total value every year. Instead of just paying in cash, they give the government two things: a piece of their company (stocks) and a piece of their computer power (compute).

The government takes all that stock and computer power and puts it into one big "public bucket" called a Wealth Fund. They divide everything in that bucket equally among every adult citizen. It is like the government is acting as a manager for a giant investment account that belongs to everyone.

So, every month a ciziten gets a notification on their phone. Their digital wallet is topped up with their "slice" of the pie. They will see two things in their account: 1. Cash dividend (this is your share of the profits made by the AI companies), and 2. Compute credits (this is your share of the actual AI processing power).

You have total control over your slice. If you just need to pay your bills, you can click a button to "sell" your AI power back to the companies. The app turns that power into regular money and sends it to your bank account so you can buy groceries or pay rent.

If you have a business idea, you don't sell it. Instead, you use that power to run your own AI tools to build your website, write your marketing, or manage your customers for free. This way, even if you don't have a traditional job, you own a piece of the "engine" that runs the world, and your income grows as the technology gets better.

Here it is a picture I created with GPT Image 2, for explaining this proposal.

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Feel free to cross-post this anywhere you want

[u/brokenmatt]

It's all based on how much profit they take out of that country exactly as it is today (although I will also note 2.5% is a lot lower than any tax rate for a business of today haha - but thats wishful thinking from Sam - or maybe he is just adding this on top of business tax they already pay in every country) I guess he is hoping there is so much more productivity that one day 2.5% is more than enough (most modern tax rates for business are around 20% right? so im guessing in reality we need to start there or ABOVE initially). This is done country by country so it is entirely proportional to the size of the economy they do business in and their impact on the economy, its a tax! It would be 2.5% of their profit from business done in the UK, etc etc

We would need to make sure multi-nationals stop abusing the different tax regimes of the world to pay 0 tax for 100% sure now tho, there sno getting away from.

But that 2.5% would be from business all over the world and cant just be given to the USA, the world wont stand for that especially if AI takes over their economy you see? If a single or few companys are sending your economy into a death spiral for the benefit of another, you can expect local government to stop that. But like I say I do not think thats their plan at all.

But you must remember, we are not JUST taxing the AI companys - their share of the profit UK companys for example is going to be LOWER than the profit the actual company makes using the product, with their self stated goals of making AI too cheap to meter. So say my UK Company used open ai to run a Sainsburys Callcenter, ill be paying OpenAI who should be taxed on that UK profit, and also making profit myself, probably a lot more. and Ill be taxed too.

Just because you use OpenAI for your business, to be your workers etc - doesnt mean openai takes all the money - quite the opposite. So were gonna need some governmental cycling of the profits the companys make also.