I'm fully in favor of a social safety net (a proper UBI even), but the tax system should tax what we don't want / keep within bounds, and I think in general we want more automation and more free time. So we should tax resource consumption. Short time, this might turn out the same (i.e. whether to tax agents through electricity consumption or agents directly might not make much of a difference) but I think long term this would align incentives across a few dimensions very well.

For decades we have taxed what we want - productive work - far more than other forms.

It should be a clue that most of the people making the rules are generally considered nonproductive, or at least adjacent to and aspiring to be nonproductive.

And I think that is a major mistake, has many unwanted side effects, and only works because work supply does not yet exceed demand, so the taxes still keep flowing. But the relationship is beginning to break and I think a resource consumption based model helps with two very current challenges of society.

Helps who?

The people who make the rules (by brainwashing the population through a trillion dollar advertising industry what would make Pravda blush) only want to help themselves. As long as they have enough toys to prevent a French Revolution or for other people to take their wealth, they’re happy.

200 years ago, even 1000 years ago, the rich had to live in the same towns as the masses so they did actually put effort into keeping them nice. Building amenities, providing jobs, etc.

They don’t have to do that now. Power extends far beyond a 20 mile radius. They don’t have to go anywhere near the people.

Taxing resource consumption, would likely encourage companies to optimize for less and less resource consumption. That by itself might be a good thing. But what if some day companies achieved the ultimate savings, using very little resource to produce the max amount of things. You'd get very little tax revenue to feed the society.

Of course, if those max amounts of things have few consumers because most people are just too poor to afford them, that'd make companies (or the agents that run companies) think twice too. At some point these AI agents might work together to come up with an economic system to make it possible for society to afford their products so they could further grow.

> most people are just too poor to afford them

I think a resource consumption based tax model extends very neatly to a UBI model. One could think of as: "this is the basic resource consumption we allow each person" and it automatically generates demand for basic services everyone should be able to afford with their share of resources, while keeping a free market and allowing an economy on top with extra resources. Standard money could still be the means for value exchange, just taxing works differently.

Here's a wild idea: about the CEO and shareholders being properly taxed, instead? Every job being replaced by AI is with the purpose of making more money for the CEO and shareholders, right? So, tax them more. It would solve SO MANY issues

Where do you draw the line to define an "agent" that should pay taxes? Many jobs once done entirely by humans have been replaced by software or mechanical automation long before AI came along. The issue of eroding social safety nets due to declining income tax revenue can be solved in a much more straightforward manner that doesn't require complex AI tax schemes.

I don't think taxes are the main issue, but people losing their jobs.

We need UBI. Taxes are still there anyway, company income/profit tax, VAT, and maybe we can have other taxes too for automatically-generate income, same as with investments/dividend/gambling tax and stuff.

Jeremy Rifkin already wrote about that in 1995. His predictions might have been wrong by a few decades. :-) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_Work

Doesn't this assume those people don't just find other jobs and continue to pay taxes?

Where does it end though? The most optimistic (or pessimistic, depending on your viewpoint) say that AI will be able to replace or displace lots of professions. Is there enough work for everyone? Is there enough meaningful work for everyone? A software engineer or accountant making ~150k a year will find another job that pays less, so he will also pay less taxes. What's going to happen in the short term, inbetween this shift? A bunch of unhappy unemployed people leaning on social systems. That seems pretty devastating. Who is going to come out as winners?

Probably best to read dickens to see the future.

Just remove the moral obligations the penning class felt they had in the 19th century.

Owning, not penning.

Expect more populist politicians promising things they can’t deliver and blaming whatever out group they dislike.

Taxes can't replace people spending money and getting goods and services. Also, who said AI is getting paid well enough to afford paying taxes?

How about we start making billionaires and their companies pay taxes first?