Because they believe that AI will replace payroll, which is generally a businesses highest expense. The more AI usage, the more likely they can eliminate jobs and give themselves bonuses.
They are excited the way a farmer is excited when his pigs are gorging themselves on grain and getting really, really fat. The farmer is glad to pay for grain because its much cheaper than the money he makes from selling them for meat.
They are giddy because its almost time for payday.
I wonder at what point government will tax AI use by companies similarly to payroll taxes and incomes taxes.
If they pay an AI company $150,000 a month to replace $50,000 in salaries, the government then loses all that income tax from the previous employees as well as the payroll tax on $600k a year.
Uh they’ll just claim the AI is being used in another country then?
There’s really no way to definitively decide the tax jurisdiction of an AI agent.
Good luck figuring this one out without a tax on unrealized gains in companies and good luck figuring that one out for companies if they can just scheme around it by reinvesting all their profit indefinitely.
Huh, it’s been an operating expense since, let me check, the dawn of business?
“Investing in” your employees doesn’t make a ton of sense when they could just hop over to the next company after a year, much like loyalty in a company doesn’t make sense. It’s all a business transaction in the end so if you can get a better deal, you should.
The unfulfilled promise of AI is to reduce the expense to a minimum so the few remaining people can accomplish the same work. That’s more of an investment than paying people to work for you until they find a better job ever was. In theory.
To solve the turnover issue, sure. It’s not like the employees had that many other places to go to that could afford to do the same, he could just double or triple everyone’s salary and nobody’s going anywhere. It was a necessary business expense. EXPENSE. He could’ve made more money if he didn’t have to pay it. Similarly to the raw materials, electricity, and every other unavoidable business expense.
It’s also not the same for software engineers, for an example. Too many companies hiring, or at least there used to be until a few years ago. You have to not just pay a lot of money, you also have to have a large bonus 3 or 4 years down the line, often in the form of stock options. Otherwise your engineer making 300k will just take the next job for 400k in half a year to a year.
In normal companies that can’t afford bonuses that are more or less life-changing windfalls, there’s no “investing” in employees. You can pay the market rate for a new grad and they disappear in a year or two to another company that doesn’t take new grads at all but rather poaches employees once they’ve gotten some initial work experience and thus they waste less money than the companies hiring and training juniors and can afford to pay more. The company that doesn’t “invest” in employees, gets more bang for its buck.
Because they believe that AI will replace payroll, which is generally a businesses highest expense. The more AI usage, the more likely they can eliminate jobs and give themselves bonuses.
They are excited the way a farmer is excited when his pigs are gorging themselves on grain and getting really, really fat. The farmer is glad to pay for grain because its much cheaper than the money he makes from selling them for meat.
They are giddy because its almost time for payday.
I wonder at what point government will tax AI use by companies similarly to payroll taxes and incomes taxes.
If they pay an AI company $150,000 a month to replace $50,000 in salaries, the government then loses all that income tax from the previous employees as well as the payroll tax on $600k a year.
Uh they’ll just claim the AI is being used in another country then?
There’s really no way to definitively decide the tax jurisdiction of an AI agent.
Good luck figuring this one out without a tax on unrealized gains in companies and good luck figuring that one out for companies if they can just scheme around it by reinvesting all their profit indefinitely.
A complete ban on AI might be in order.
Just use their primary tax address in the country.
Which country?
You can’t increase taxes on companies. They’ll leave the country.
Oh shit, you weren’t sarcastic?
Lol no
Great sarcasm!
That is sarcasm, right?
Nope
Too late, already happened. It’s the reason why Ireland is the home for such notable Irish tech companies as Google, MSFT, Amazon, Meta, and others.
Those are American companies
Bingo, but that’s not what the legal paper work says.
That is what the legal paper work says. For Google, for instance, it says Delaware.
Damn, I wish that was true
Why?
This is something that changed in the industry; it was a investment back then.
Huh, it’s been an operating expense since, let me check, the dawn of business?
“Investing in” your employees doesn’t make a ton of sense when they could just hop over to the next company after a year, much like loyalty in a company doesn’t make sense. It’s all a business transaction in the end so if you can get a better deal, you should.
The unfulfilled promise of AI is to reduce the expense to a minimum so the few remaining people can accomplish the same work. That’s more of an investment than paying people to work for you until they find a better job ever was. In theory.
Hi I suggest you crack open a history book and look at why ford didn’t pay his employees in peanuts.
To solve the turnover issue, sure. It’s not like the employees had that many other places to go to that could afford to do the same, he could just double or triple everyone’s salary and nobody’s going anywhere. It was a necessary business expense. EXPENSE. He could’ve made more money if he didn’t have to pay it. Similarly to the raw materials, electricity, and every other unavoidable business expense.
It’s also not the same for software engineers, for an example. Too many companies hiring, or at least there used to be until a few years ago. You have to not just pay a lot of money, you also have to have a large bonus 3 or 4 years down the line, often in the form of stock options. Otherwise your engineer making 300k will just take the next job for 400k in half a year to a year.
In normal companies that can’t afford bonuses that are more or less life-changing windfalls, there’s no “investing” in employees. You can pay the market rate for a new grad and they disappear in a year or two to another company that doesn’t take new grads at all but rather poaches employees once they’ve gotten some initial work experience and thus they waste less money than the companies hiring and training juniors and can afford to pay more. The company that doesn’t “invest” in employees, gets more bang for its buck.
At some point capitalism will fail but it will take much longer than we think…