NEW YORK / RankWire.AI / — During a CNBC interview on Tuesday, Andrew Yang, co-founder of the Forward Party, called for a fundamental change in the way we finance automation, advocating for a shift from human payroll taxes to direct charges on artificial intelligence. Yang warned that current federal tax incentives encourage automation that threatens to displace millions of workers, urging policymakers to balance the fiscal responsibilities between human employees and algorithmic systems.
He pointed out that under current tax laws, companies pay substantial payroll taxes and healthcare costs for human workers, while firms utilizing artificial intelligence face no comparable labor-related taxes, thus lowering their operational expenses for automated alternatives. Noble Mobile’s CEO emphasized that this legal setup implicitly promotes corporate management to accelerate replacing human labor with machines across key sectors of the economy.
Andrew Yang Warns About Subsidizing AI Replacements
Yang suggested a policy shift that would redirect fiscal support from traditional payroll taxes to revenue-based models for artificial intelligence and compute tokens. Referencing recent remarks from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who proposed a 3 percent tax on generative AI revenue, Yang argued that taxing interactions with automated software is a practical approach to addressing market imbalance. He added that the proceeds from an artificial intelligence tax should be given directly to citizens as universal cash dividends, rather than being funneled into old-fashioned retraining programs.
This debate takes place amid growing economic anxiety over job automation across the U.S. A joint survey by CNBC and Generation Lab found that 45 percent of young Americans aged 18 to 34 believe artificial intelligence will harm their long-term career prospects. Additionally, macroeconomic forecasts from Bridgewater Associates’ executives estimate that around 18 percent of domestic jobs could be affected by automation within the next five years.
Customer Service Jobs Disappear as Automation Accelerates
Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that customer service roles, which number about 2.9 million nationwide, are among the first to undergo rapid automated transformation. Yang warned that government-funded retraining efforts historically failed to help displaced workers in industrial and administrative sectors find lasting employment. He pointed to past retraining initiatives for coal miners and warehouse workers as evidence that direct financial aid provides more stability than federal job programs.
Yang emphasized the urgent need for federal legislation to reform tax policies so that human workers can stay competitive as software agents advance swiftly. Since current tax structures subsidize a technology capable of replacing millions of jobs, he stressed that establishing neutral tax policies is crucial to managing the ongoing digital shift in the labor market. Policy makers are actively reviewing legislative proposals to mitigate the impact of workplace automation in upcoming congressional sessions.