Anthropic CEO Pushes AI Tax to Fund UBI — Who Pays?
Anthropic's Amodei proposes taxing AI firms for UBI as labor disruption looms. Plus: UK's $1.5B AI hardware plan and new agent tools.
The story of the day
Anthropic’s Dario Amodei wants governments to tax AI companies to fund universal basic income, framing it as a hedge against labor displacement. According to his blog, the "AI exponential" may permanently reduce labor demand, justifying a capital gains tax hike or direct levies on "relevant companies." The proposal arrives as OpenAI’s reported $14B annual loss underscores the industry’s subsidy-driven pricing—businesses betting on perpetual below-cost tokens may soon face the bill. For builders, the question isn’t whether AI will disrupt labor, but who absorbs the cost: VCs, users, or taxpayers.
New tools & launches
Ghost in the Loop — Open-source auto-continuation for multi-step AI conversations, exposing how far models go without human interruptions. [Reddit]
Slashy — AI assistant that drafts and sends emails autonomously. [Product Hunt]
Open-Cowork — Open-source alternative to Claude Cowork with BYOK (Bring Your Own Key) support. [GitHub]
ClawMoat — Runtime containment for AI agents, targeting post-Fable 5 security gaps. [Website]
Models & research
Anthropic’s research on Claude as a Chemist demonstrates the model’s ability to assist in chemical synthesis workflows, though the paper stops short of claiming full autonomy. The work focuses on tool integration and iterative refinement—useful for domain-specific deployments but not a general reasoning breakthrough. [Anthropic Blog]
Industry pulse
Reuters reports the UK will allocate $1.5B to AI infrastructure, including supercomputing and chip funding. The move mirrors US and EU efforts to localize compute, but the real test will be whether the capital translates into accessible, non-subsidized resources for developers. [Reuters]
Stat of the day
OpenAI’s projected $14B annual loss in 2026 (via user reports) reveals the scale of AI’s subsidy economy. Token prices are dropping, but below-cost sales mean the bill—eventually—lands on users. [Reddit]
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