A Palantir Defector Wants to Tax Every AI Token — And Mail You the Check
A Palantir Defector Wants to Tax Every AI Token — And Mail You the CheckA guy who BUILT the surveillance tools now wants to tax the robots — and cut you a check when they take your job.
Goldman Sachs says ~16,000 Americans are losing their jobs to AI every single month. One ex-spy-tech engineer says: “Cool, then the robots owe us rent.”
Alex Bores worked at Palantir — the company that builds data tools for the CIA and the military. He quit in 2019 because they started helping ICE track immigrants. Now he’s running for Congress in New York and just dropped something called the “AI Dividend” — basically a plan to tax every single time a company uses AI and send YOU the money. The AI lobbyists are already spending millions to stop him.
🧩 Dumb Mode Dictionary
 Term |
 What It Actually Means |
|---|---|
| AI Dividend | A government check mailed to you when robots take enough jobs — like stimulus checks, but funded by the robot companies |
| Token Tax | Every time ChatGPT or any AI processes a chunk of text (called a “token”), the company pays a tiny tax on it |
| Equity Warrants | The government gets the right to buy shares in AI companies if they get crazy rich — so taxpayers own a slice |
| Labor Force Participation | The percentage of adults who actually have a job or are looking for one |
| Palantir | A $50 billion company that builds spy software for governments — yes, that kind of spy software |
| RAISE Act | A New York law that forces big AI companies (making $500M+) to publish a safety plan or face penalties |
| Super PAC | A group that can spend unlimited money on political ads — in this case, AI billionaires trying to kill this guy’s campaign |
🔍 Who Is This Guy?
Alex Bores is a 30-something computer engineer (Cornell undergrad, Georgia Tech masters) who spent five years at Palantir as a data scientist, project lead, and eventually led their entire U.S. government division.
- He quit Palantir in 2019 specifically because they renewed their contract with ICE
- Got elected to the New York State Assembly in 2022
- Co-wrote and passed the RAISE Act — the first law forcing big AI labs to publish safety plans
- Now running for U.S. Congress in New York’s 12th district
The man literally built surveillance tools, walked away, and is now trying to regulate the people he used to work with. That’s a movie plot.
📊 How the AI Dividend Actually Works
The plan has three money pipes feeding into one pool:
 Funding Source |
How It Works |
|---|---|
| Token Tax | A small tax on every AI computation (measured in tokens). Every ChatGPT query, every Midjourney image, every automated email — the company pays a fraction of a cent |
| Equity Warrants | If an AI company’s value skyrockets, the federal government gets the right to buy shares at a discount. Taxpayers literally become part-owners |
| Tax Code Reform | Right now, companies get tax breaks for replacing humans with machines. This flips that — you’d get penalized for automating jobs instead of rewarded |
The money goes to:
- Direct payments to Americans (like stimulus checks)
- Retraining programs for displaced workers
- AI oversight so someone’s actually watching what these companies do
⚡ When Does It Actually Kick In?
This isn’t automatic. The checks only start flowing when THREE alarm bells ring at the same time:
- Labor force participation drops — meaning fewer adults are working or even looking for work
- Wages compress — people in AI-affected jobs start earning less even though the economy’s growing
- Productivity spikes without job growth — companies are making more money with fewer humans
Bores compared it to fire insurance: “You don’t take out fire insurance because you expect your house to burn down — you have insurance in case something goes awry.”
Right now? Goldman Sachs data shows ~16,000 jobs disappearing monthly to AI. The Federal Reserve Chair has openly linked AI to rising unemployment among young graduates. The fuse is already lit.
🗣️ The AI Billionaires Fighting Him
Here’s where it gets absolutely wild. A super PAC called “Leading The Future” is spending millions to crush Bores’ campaign. And look who’s funding it:
- Andreessen Horowitz — the biggest VC firm in Silicon Valley
- Greg Brockman — President of OpenAI
- Joe Lonsdale — co-founder of Palantir (Bores’ OLD EMPLOYER)
- Perplexity — the AI search engine company
His former boss’s co-founder is literally funding attack ads against him. Bores’ response? “If they can support this plan, that would show they actually believe what they’re putting out there.”
Meanwhile, the CEOs of OpenAI, Anthropic, and even Tesla have all publicly warned that AI will eliminate massive numbers of jobs. They just don’t want anyone to actually… do anything about it.
📝 The Key Quote That Says It All
Bores dropped this in his announcement memo:
“The AI Dividend is only possible if we act now. Once small companies have captured extraordinary wealth, the political window closes.”
And this one:
“If AI can substitute for labor rather than complement it, then our tax code is actively subsidizing job eliminations.”
Translation: Right now YOUR tax dollars are making it cheaper for companies to replace you with a robot. His plan would flip that on its head.
Cool. So robots might owe us rent checks now… Now What the Hell Do We Do? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
📊 Hustle #1: Become a Local AI Displacement Data Broker
Most small towns and mid-size cities have ZERO data on how many jobs AI is eating locally. But if this dividend plan (or anything like it) passes, the triggers are all about local labor stats. Scrape your city’s job postings weekly using Browse AI or Apify, track which roles disappear, and package it as a monthly “AI Impact Report” for your city council, local news stations, and labor unions. Municipal governments will pay $500-2,000/month for this because they literally don’t have the staff to track it.
Example: A policy researcher in Lisbon started tracking AI job displacement in Portugal’s call center industry using public job board data. She now sells quarterly reports to three different labor unions at €1,200 each, and a Portuguese news outlet pays her €400/month for an exclusive data column.
Timeline: 2-3 weeks to build the scraper and first report. Revenue within 30 days if you pitch to unions and local government offices.
💼 Hustle #2: Launch an 'AI Audit' Service for Companies Trying to Stay Legal
The RAISE Act already requires AI companies making $500M+ to publish safety plans. But smaller companies using AI tools (law firms, marketing agencies, HR departments) have NO idea if they’re compliant with state-level AI regulations that are popping up everywhere. Use AI Verify (Singapore’s open-source AI testing toolkit) to run basic bias checks and transparency reviews. Charge $2,000-5,000 per audit. You don’t need to be a lawyer — you just need to understand the checklist.
Example: A freelance data analyst in Toronto noticed Canadian companies panicking about Quebec’s new AI transparency rules. He packages a 15-page compliance report using open-source audit tools and charges CAD $3,500 per company. He’s done 11 audits in four months — all from cold LinkedIn messages to HR directors.
🔧 Hustle #3: Build a 'Will AI Take My Job?' Calculator for Niche Industries
Everyone’s seen the generic “will robots take your job” websites. They’re all terrible and generic. Build one that’s hyper-specific to ONE industry — nursing, trucking, legal assistants, whatever. Use the O*NET database (free government data on every job in America) crossed with AI capability reports. Monetize with newsletter signups, affiliate links to retraining courses, and sponsorships from staffing agencies. The Bores news cycle makes this timely right now.
Example: A web developer in Manila built a calculator specifically for Philippine BPO (call center) workers that estimates their displacement risk using public AI adoption data. It went viral on Filipino Facebook groups. She monetizes through affiliate links to Coursera and Udemy retraining courses — pulling $1,800/month in commissions.
💡 Hustle #4: Ghost-Write 'AI Impact Statements' for Politicians
Every state legislator, city council member, and congressional candidate now needs to have an AI position. Most of them can barely explain what a token is. Write their policy memos, op-eds, and position papers for them. Reach out to candidates running in 2026 midterms — especially in swing districts where AI job loss is a real voter issue. Political consulting firms charge $10,000+ for this kind of thing. You can undercut them at $1,500-3,000 per deliverable by actually understanding the tech.
Example: A political science grad student in Ohio cold-emailed 40 state legislature candidates offering a free one-page “AI impact brief” for their district. Seven responded. Three hired her to write full policy position papers at $2,500 each. One now pays her a $1,500/month retainer for ongoing AI policy research.
🛠️ Follow-Up Actions
| Step | Action | Link |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Read Bores’ full AI framework breakdown | NBC News coverage |
| 2 | Understand the RAISE Act (already law in NY) | Transparency Coalition interview |
| 3 | Track AI job displacement data | O*NET Online |
| 4 | Learn open-source AI auditing | AI Verify toolkit |
| 5 | Scrape job data for local reports | Browse AI |
| 6 | Follow the AI lobbying money | TechCrunch on AI super PACs vs Bores |
Quick Hits
| Want to… | Do this |
|---|---|
| Understand the AI Dividend in 2 minutes |
Read the Decrypt breakdown |
 Check if YOUR job is at risk |
Browse O*NET’s task database and look at which tasks in your role are “automatable” |
 See who’s funding anti-regulation AI PACs |
Search OpenSecrets for “Leading The Future” super PAC |
 Follow the policy fight in real time |
Alex Bores’ campaign and Axios coverage |
| Read the law that started this |
RAISE Act explainer |
The guy who built the machine is now trying to make it pay rent. And the machine’s owners are spending millions to shut him up.
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