Rep. Sam Liccardo unveils AI workforce tax credit bill

Ah, Washington's latest answer to the AI disruption: tax credits. Rep. Sam Liccardo's SKILL Act—cutely acronymed as the Supporting Knowledge Through Industry-Led Learning—would hand out tax breaks to companies that deign to fund university programs for AI jobs. Because nothing says 'we'll handle the workforce transition' like a perfectly timed subsidy for the very firms that are busily automating their own employees out of existence.

Industry-led learning! That's the magic phrase. Translation: 'You show us the receipts for your philanthropic gestures, we'll give you money back from the public purse.' The clever people at companies like Google and Amazon, already pocketing billions, can now add a nice little tax credit for sponsoring a certificate program between mass layoffs. One imagines the CFOs sharpening their pencils: 'If we fund a chatbot ethics module, we can claim credit for preparing the workforce—while we replace the workforce with chatbots. Margins!'

Of course, this assumes the training programs will actually produce humans qualified for the AI jobs of 2030, rather than the AI jobs of 2019. The SKILL Act slots neatly alongside every other corporate retraining scheme that's delivered precisely nothing measurable. But hey, the tax credits flow now, the skills might come later. Or not. Either way, the government gets to say it did something. Bottoms up, readers—the future is brought to you by the letter 'tax break' and the number 'pocketed.'