Andrew Yang, the 2020 presidential candidate who now runs Noble Mobile, renewed his call for an AI tax on CNBC's Power Lunch this week. He argued the government should tax artificial intelligence rather than payroll, saying firms skip payroll taxes and healthcare costs by choosing AI over new hires.
Why tax AI instead of labor
Yang built his political brand on automation warnings during his 2020 campaign, and he's sticking with that message. The government currently taxes labor through payroll taxes, but Yang says that's backwards. If companies can replace workers with AI and avoid those costs, the tax code should catch up.
He pointed to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who floated a 3% AI revenue tax in 2025. Amodei said the levy would apply each time a model generates revenue. Yang said the same logic should apply broadly, but argued it would force firms to weigh AI costs against payroll costs.
The idea is gaining traction
Yang isn't alone. Bridgewater Associates executives Greg Jensen and Nir Bar Dea wrote a New York Times opinion piece estimating AI could displace 18% of current US jobs within five years. They used that estimate to back their own AI token tax proposal, echoing Amodei's idea.
The concern is spreading beyond the tech world. A CNBC and Generation Lab survey published August 13 polled Americans aged 18-34 and found 45% expect AI to hurt their careers. Only 10% expect it to help.
The human cost
The shift is already visible in customer service, which employs roughly 2.9 million Americans per the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's a lot of people in a job category that AI can increasingly handle.
Yang's comments echo remarks from March, when he told CNBC's Squawk Box the government should stop taxing labor. He's been consistent on this, and the debate has drawn similar AI job displacement concerns from sitting US senators.
What Yang wants
Yang proposed sending tax revenue directly to workers as checks. He said retraining programs rarely help displaced workers find new careers, citing coal miners and warehouse staff as examples that largely failed.
He's not just talking. Yang co-founded the Forward Party and now runs Noble Mobile as chief executive. He backed cryptocurrency adoption and clearer digital asset rules as a candidate, but the AI tax is his signature issue.
The question now is whether any of this becomes policy. Amodei's 3% idea is still just an idea, and Yang's proposal has no legislative vehicle. But with a new survey showing young workers worried, and Bridgewater's top brass weighing in, the conversation isn't going away.
