"A WEALTH TAX IS THE PERFECT *COVID STIMULUS MEASURE": PATRIOTIC MILLIONAIRES

[kurtcagle]

3. Very much agree

I've also made the argument that a significant amount of that wealth has come about because companies are slashing payroll and moving as much as they can to automation, especially AI. Given that a significant proportion of that AI was created at public universities and implemented by open source developers who in turn gave back much of what they created to the community, an argument can be made that these same investors are essentially profiting off of software that they didn't write, based on research that they didn't perform, over networks that they didn't put into place and that were significantly subsidized with taxpayer funds.

I work in the AI field, but I've long recognized the potential that it has to be both appropriated and misused, especially in the arena of work. I think it may actually be time for software authors to start demanding that the legal provisions that are written into open-source software be enforced, upon threat of both a technical boycott and hundreds of billions of dollars worth of class action lawsuits.