In that case, the problem is that your proposal doesn't tax slop. It's just a general tax hike on big AI companies. It could even make slop marginally worse if AI companies respond by reducing R&D. And even if some do respond by raising prices, why wouldn't the actual slop producers (a subset of users) just switch to cheaper competitors?
First, I think the prospect of selling this politically as something that hits individuals or small businesses is DOA, but the handful of trillion-dollar companies that run 95% of the market, much more palatable. Any politician wants to say they stuck it to meta, twitter, and amazon, and not their voters. Am I missing something?
Second, I think we're working with different concepts of how slop occurs and is produced. The slop you have in your head is probably just the egregious and harmful type, but anytime you're replacing cognitive or creative work, something that could be said to be done nearly every time "artificial" intelligence is leveraged, you in some part "slop". The idea here is that AI very quickly reduces the funding pool for all kinds of cultural infrastructure, not least education. So for anyone who wants aspects of that to be economically and culturally preserved, this is a broad re-alignment of the responsibilities of the massive for profit concerns that openly steal our IP and cognitive labor.
Oh hold on. I see you're affiliated with the Cato Institute. This explains a lot! :-)
Got it. So you are arguing against AI use in general, not just slop. And this piece is really about transferring resources from AI companies to media, not taxing slop. Why not just be upfront about that? "The Case For Sticking it to Meta, Twitter, and Amazon" would be a fine title.