Alaska Is a Model for Taxing AI as an Extracted Natural Resource
Columnist Andrew Leahey says using a sovereign wealth fund as an investment vehicle for taxes on artificial intelligence can ensure its long-term public value.
As artificial intelligence continues to revolutionize industries, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that it’s built on a resource we collectively own—human knowledge. Like oil or mineral deposits, data is mined from vast natural reserves every day.
AI models get their value by ingesting articles, art, books, and other human-created works. Viewed through this lens, we should consider how to ensure AI’s harvest of knowledge is preserved for the public good, just as states have safeguarded the profits from oil extraction for future generations through investment in sovereign wealth funds.
This is where tax policy provides an answer. By taxing businesses that generate revenue from AI models, and then investing that revenue in a US sovereign wealth fund, we can help ensure the windfall is more fairly distributed over time. Sovereign wealth funds are state-owned investment entities that serve exactly this purpose—preserving wealth from today’s profits for future generations by generating long-term returns or investments.
