The Unasked Question of the AI Revolution
Amid the relentless discussion about whether artificial intelligence will ultimately render human labor obsolete, one fundamental question remains conspicuously absent from serious debate: how will we be fed? This is not merely a speculative concern but the central economic and political challenge of our emerging technological era.
The Distribution Dilemma
While OpenAI's Sam Altman and other technology leaders envision a future where AI generates unprecedented wealth, this optimistic projection carries significant risks for everyone except the techno-oligarchs themselves. Even if artificial intelligence does produce enormous economic prosperity, the distribution of these gains presents a formidable political challenge that demands immediate attention.
The question of distribution breaks down into two critical components. First, there is the technical challenge of designing an effective system to redistribute economic output as machines increasingly dominate production and labor's share of income potentially approaches zero. More importantly, this economic reorganization will fundamentally restructure power dynamics within society.
Power and Governance in the AI Era
Who will determine taxation policies once AI destroys labor income, which currently serves as the primary source of government revenue in most advanced economies? Who decides how much ordinary people without equity stakes in the AI revolution get to consume? These questions become increasingly urgent as we contemplate a world where machines generate most or all economic output, and a handful of techno-billionaires potentially control decisions about resource allocation.
United Nations Secretary General António Guterres emphasized this concern at the recent AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, stating that "We need guardrails that preserve human agency, human oversight and human accountability." He further warned that "The future of AI cannot be decided by a handful of countries or left to the whims of a few billionaires."
The Alignment Challenge Beyond Technology
While AI circles engage in lively debates about technical "alignment"—ensuring machines operate according to their owners' goals—the broader challenge involves aligning these systems with societal objectives. As AI systems increasingly make decisions affecting all citizens, our current democratic governance structures appear inadequate to constrain the ambitions of the oligarchs steering these technologies.
Historically, technological change helped spread democracy worldwide as urban working classes became economically indispensable, forcing political systems to accommodate their interests. However, if ordinary people's labor becomes irrelevant, what happens to their power to influence government?
Taxation Proposals for the AI Economy
Researchers Anton Korinek and Lee Lockwood from the University of Virginia have developed proposals for how public finance might function in the AI era. They suggest consumer taxes could initially compensate for shrinking labor income, but as artificial superintelligence dominates, human consumption would decrease while machine-generated output increases, necessitating heavier capital taxation.
Other innovative ideas include:
- Using taxes to slow the transition by steering technological investments toward augmenting human labor rather than replacing it
- Implementing taxes on fixed factors like land, spectrum, data, or monopoly rents that contribute little to societal wellbeing
- Collecting taxes in shares rather than cash to gradually build public equity in AI ventures
- Government expropriation of AI equity for redistribution to the population
Political Realities and Resistance
Despite these theoretical solutions, significant political obstacles remain. Current tax structures in countries like the United States—where taxes represent less than 26% of GDP and capital taxation barely exceeds 2%—would require dramatic increases as people lose wage income and depend more on government support.
The technology oligarchs driving this revolution have vigorously resisted government attempts to regulate their power or increase their tax burden. The OECD's global tax deal, finalized in 2021 to limit tax avoidance by tech giants, faced setbacks when the Trump administration unilaterally withdrew in early 2025 following substantial campaign donations from tech oligarchs.
Alternative Strategies and Network-States
Faced with government resistance, Silicon Valley's wealthy elite are pursuing multiple strategies to protect their interests. Beyond mobilizing vast resources to influence American politics, they are developing "network-states" in locations ranging from Greenland and Nigeria to Honduras and Caribbean islands, creating potential havens from democratic governance.
As artificial intelligence potentially grows as powerful as its creators anticipate, the ultimate strategy for ensuring societal wellbeing in a post-work world might involve approaching these moguls with requests rather than demands. The fundamental question remains: who decides how much everyday people without equity stakes in the AI revolution get to consume? This is not merely an economic question but a profound challenge to democratic governance and human dignity in the coming technological era.
