The Silent "Tax" of AI: Vanishing Capital and Unborn Jobs

I vividly remember the sound and heat of computer labs back in 1999. I was working at a graphic design university just as technology was starting to accelerate the pace of creativity. It was fascinating, almost magical, to see how software reduced the time it took to create a logo. However, there was still a significant barrier to entry: cost.

In my early entrepreneurial ventures, hiring a professional designer to create a visual identity was a painful, almost prohibitive investment. The same applied to the legal field; asking a lawyer to draft a simple purchase agreement meant hefty fees that would make any startup's petty cash tremble. We understood the value of human expertise, but the price of access was high.

Today, that barrier has been shattered.

I confess what many do in the shadows but few admit publicly: if I need a contract, I ask an Artificial Intelligence to do it. I know my lawyer friends will raise an eyebrow and warn me about the countless legal risks and nuances that the machine ignores. They're right. But the pragmatic reality of the market is overwhelming: I do it, and so do millions of people right now. The same happens with applications and websites built using tabulators and AI-generated code by people who've never taken a Computer Science class. Logos, videos, voiceovers - everything is within reach of a prompt.

At first glance, this seems like the ultimate democratization of productivity. But if we take a closer look, we're facing an economic phenomenon that could drain emerging economies like Mexico.

In my recent visits to dozens of corporations, I've noticed a disturbing pattern in CEOs' discourse. They no longer boast about their large teams; now they brag about the efficiency of their AI agents. And here's the dangerous nuance: they're not massively laying off employees, they're just not hiring.

It's the "empty chair" that never gets filled. The junior writing position, the legal assistant, the entry-level graphic designer, the level 1 data analyst - these jobs are silently disappearing. Add to this the obsession of the startup ecosystem: I know founders forcing AI processes where they don't make sense, just because they know that Venture Capital funds won't open their wallets if the pitch doesn't include the magic words "Artificial Intelligence".

The question that keeps me up at night is: what happens to the economy of an emerging country when we substitute payroll for subscriptions?

Let's do a financial autopsy of this change. When a Mexican company hires a local employee, a virtuous cycle is activated. That salary pays Income Tax, contributes to IMSS and Infonavit, and most importantly: it's spent in the local economy. The employee buys tacos on the corner, pays rent in the neighborhood, goes to the movies, and consumes local services. The money circulates and generates internal wealth.

Now, imagine that company decides not to hire the employee and instead replaces their function with an Enterprise subscription to a generative AI.

The operating cost might be similar or even lower, but the destination of the capital is radically different. That payment is typically made with a corporate credit card. The money instantly leaves the Mexican economy and lands in the coffers of one of the few hyper-scaling companies in San Francisco or Seattle.

There's no withholding of Income Tax on salaries. No contribution to social security. No local consumption derived from that expense. It's essentially a massive, industrial-scale capital flight. We're trading internal wealth generation for external operational efficiency.

Emerging economies risk becoming mere passive users, paying digital rent, while their labor bases contract. If AI concentrates wealth in a handful of global players (and we know who they are), what's left for the tax systems and social security of countries like ours?

It's not about standing in front of the progress train with a Luddite flag; AI is here to stay, and its usefulness is undeniable. But we must be brutally honest about the macroeconomic cost. We're celebrating the agility of our businesses while, perhaps, eroding the very foundation that supports our national economy: employment and local capital circulation.

Next time we celebrate saving money on a contract or design thanks to AI, it's worth asking ourselves: where did the money we saved go? Because it's sure not staying in Mexico