Former Chinese Official Proposes ‘AI Tax’ to Buffer Job Shocks

Rather than just pumping more direct investment into artificial intelligence (AI), governments should prioritize building robust social safety nets — potentially including an “AI substitution tax” — to mitigate the technology’s looming shock to the labor market, a former Chinese official said Wednesday.

Speaking at the Caixin Summer Summit, Jiang Xiaojuan, a former deputy secretary-general of China’s State Council, warned that unlike past technologies that merely assisted humans, modern AI can act autonomously, making its impact on jobs unprecedented.