Taxing Artificial Intelligence Would Be a Big Mistake: Editorial

Artificial intelligence might be the most transformative technology ever devised. Exactly how its effects will work through the economy is impossible to say, but serious disruption of one kind or another seems likely. Millions of jobs — in the end, maybe most jobs — could radically change, and many will disappear entirely.

How should economic policy respond? One approach gaining support is to slow the displacement of workers with new taxes on AI services and investments. The challenge these proposals aim to address is real — but trying to hold back the tide is the wrong answer.

Most fundamentally, innovation ...