TheBadPlaceyahoo news | Sam Altman's (Not So) New Deal for Superintelligent AI
OpenAI’s newly released “Industrial Policy for the Intelligence Age: Ideas to Keep People First” attempts to shape a future with super‑intelligent AI by proposing portable benefit platforms that separate health insurance and retirement plans from any single employer, and by suggesting that AI could handle the administrative overhead of starting a business. The paper champions “startup‑in‑a‑box” solutions—standardized contracts and shared back‑office services—to help innovators move quickly from idea to scale, echoing arguments from Kevin Frazier of the Abundance Institute that such tools could accelerate the creation of multibillion‑dollar enterprises.
However, the policy also recommends a series of tax and fiscal measures that critics argue would dampen innovation. OpenAI calls for higher capital‑gains and corporate‑income taxes at the top end, as well as the creation of a public wealth fund to let every citizen invest in AI‑related growth assets—though the fund’s financing is left unspecified. Research from the Cato Institute links higher corporate tax rates to reduced research‑and‑development spending and fewer patents, while higher capital‑gains taxes tend to discourage startup investment, potentially slowing economic progress at a time when AI could drive massive productivity gains.
The paper further calls for an expansion of existing safety‑net programs—food stamps, unemployment insurance, Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare—asserting they must be fully functional and responsive during the AI transition. While updating safety nets may be necessary, the authors argue that merely attaching AI to flawed legacy systems will not solve underlying problems; instead, a fundamental reevaluation of these systems is required. The proposal’s optimism about the government’s ability to allocate billions effectively is seen as naive, especially when contrasted with more measured alternatives, such as focusing on expanding energy infrastructure rather than imposing moratoria on data‑center construction.
#samaltman #openai #socialsecurity #industrialpolicy #intelligenceage
