Wages, contracts and social protections all assumed that time was a reliable proxy for output, but artificial intelligence (AI) has severed this link. Trying to tax firms directly for their “degree of automation” has never worked, because such processes are organizationally opaque. The answer might be to tax “AI-hours”: the computational time consumed by AI systems performing economically productive tasks. Of course, there is a risk that firms will game the system to qualify for lower tax rates. An AI-hours levy can convert machine productivity into public revenue without suppressing innovation.

Source: Taipei Times January 03, 2026 18:00 UTC