AI Could Seriously Damage Society

AI presents two pressing problems that Washington chooses to ignore.

Last week’s column discussed the danger that AI development, unregulated, could destroy us. We also must prepare for the economic and social dislocation AI could cause, and avoid letting it uglify society by enriching the very few at the expense of the rest of us. These columns were inspired by a warning by Bridgewater Associates, which uses AI and would be subject to the regulation and taxes advocated.

We suffer from extreme economic inequality. Our tax and other policies encourage worse inequality, by taxing workers’ wages at far higher rate than rich folks’ interest or profits. Workers spend their income in their communities. AI agents don’t buy beer, boots, or broccoli.

Automobiles greatly increased productivity, but the revolution was widely shared. Making horseless carriages improved everyone’s lives, and employed many workers, drivers, salesmen, and accountants. Inventive bicycle-makers could build their own autos. AI won’t so automatically benefit all of us. ChatGPT will provide us useful information quickly, but we will pay a high price, while our employment – and thus our ability to pay without hardship – may dry up.

Banditry, beggary, and communist rebellions followed the Industrial Revolution, and our present populist madness was inspired by globalism enriching traders but forcing farmers off their land. Consider a world in which young unemployed folks gang up to kidnap privileged executives on lonely roads. Why shouldn’t they?

` We can evade or mitigate the worst consequences. The government could give tax advantages or grants to companies that deploy AI in ways that augment existing employees, with workers sharing in the resulting productivity gains. We should include worker representatives on committees deciding how AI will be introduced. We will need a serious lifelong education system, including training for nursing, construction, engineering, and skilled trades.

Taxing employment discourages companies from employing folks. Why not tax AI use. Tokens are the units of data an AI model reads, processes and generates. Taxing AI tokens weakens that disincentive and creates revenue that could be used to help all citizens gain a stake in AI development, or used for re-training. We’ll need to figure out how to measure token consumption across different AI models and minimize opportunities for tax evasion; but we can solve such issues. We should also tax some of the enormous returns to capital.

Giving everyone a direct stake in capitalism might preserve people’s faith that it works. If citizens have equity in the leading AI companies, the economy’s success and their success are intertwined. These firms are using all human knowledge to build a tool that could displace much of human labor. The profits should not accrue to the companies alone.

Using token-tax revenue or credits on other corporate tax burdens, government could acquire ownership stakes and distribute them pro rata to citizens, who would hold them just as any other shareholder. Distributing the shares rather than having government hold them would connect citizens directly to AI’s progress, and prevent government bureaucracy or corruption from impeding it. Having every citizen be an equity holder would help hold society together through disruption. If all citizens have a piece of the pie, all have a stake in keeping the country peaceable and prosperous.

As Bridgewater warned, “None of this is achievable if the risk of technological catastrophe isn’t pre-empted.” Delay will render AI risks nearly impossible to avoid.

But increasing economic inequality will also hurt us.

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[The above column appeared on the 27th of September, 2026, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and on the newspaper’s website, and will be up presently on KRWG’s website. A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version of this Sunday column will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM).]

[ The AI dangers discussed in my previous column are getting plenty of play, although the current president of the United States finds that inconvenient and therefore labels it a hoax. The serious dangers discussed in this column are getting much less attention, but deserve some. Unfortunately, thoughts that tend to encourage a more just and equitable nation aren’t too popular with the well-heeled, who have a disproportionate influence on our government. ]