if most countries will not be able to tax ultra-profitable AI companies to subsidize their workers, what options will they have? I foresee only one: Unless they wish to plunge their people into poverty, they will be forced to negotiate with whichever country supplies most of their AI software — China or the United States — to essentially become that country’s economic dependent, taking in welfare subsidies in exchange for letting the “parent” nation’s AI companies continue to profit from the dependent country’s users. Such economic arrangements would reshape today’s geopolitical alliances.

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