Here is the actual amendment [1] and also it is not yet law. It's not a tax on individuals using the internet. It's a tax on companies providing content to the customers of ISPs. There is a cap on the tax.
I also don't live in France and think it's dumb but I think we need better information than the topic line to have real discussion of it.
It passed 11 to 10 and has to still pass in the French senate's version of their finance bill and the French government is against it. [2]
It's not a tax on the customer directly, but who does it get passed on to? That's like saying VAT isn't a tax on the customer as the retailer pays it to the state.
I also do not understand how this doesn't break stuff like CFAA.
If I worked at a company and gave my work login credentials to a friend and that friend used it to access my work's network then I'm pretty sure I'd go to jail.
Also if that many people were put out of a job, to the level that their basic needs were no longer met, there would be mass unrest/revolution and all of the robot production and data centers would be burned to the ground. See: French Revolution, Russian Revolution, etc.
And it would almost certainly happen before it got to the point of "they have enough robots to stop the masses". And probably we'd hit 3.5% rule[1] non-violent government regulation of AI before any of that.
The real risk of AI to me is that we're too heavily invested in it and when the bubble pops it could take a lot of institutions with it. And governments are not in a great position to bail economies out again.
Congress.gov says Rep. Ritchie Torres has sponsored 171 bills since 2021 and only one became a law, five passed the House and most of those were under Democrat majority. [1]
I have a number of family and friends who met online through video games or through online matchmaking websites (and one even through a dating app, starts with an H).
Successful, long term, loving and happy relationships. Not top 5% most attractive people. Mostly nerds, some overweight, some not.
My elderly mom has (had?) familial essential tremor and did two ultrasound brain lesion treatments: one for each hand.
The treatment was very effective. She went from not being able to eat soup without making a mess and barely being able to use touch screens (let alone write) to no visibly noticeable tremor. They had her draw a before and after spiral and it was an amazing improvement.
But the side effects were rough. She had trouble walking for weeks after the first treatment, though it eventually resolved with time and physical therapy. She had speech (cadence, slurring, word-finding) issues after the second treatment that she's currently doing therapy for.
It was a really big quality of life improvement for her but I don't know if she would have done it if she were not retired or didn't have a strong family support network.
I think you're begging the question a bit here by assuming China is spending excess wealth. In 2024 China's general government debt was 88.33% of GDP, the US was 120.79% [1]
Now in 2026 we can look at the Financial Times [2] and see it's estimated that debt servicing is 19.2% of China's central government spending with a public debt of 122% of GDP, compared to debt service spending for the US of 14.2% (total debt 126% of GDP?) and Japan 26% (total debt 204% of GDP?).
So we're all spending money that we don't have and if you look at the rankings in the Japan article and compare to the debt % of GDP in [1] then it doesn't seem to matter.
You can look up crime clearance rates. It's a little depressing.
Here's an FBI chart for 2019 [1]
Though some countries like Japan and Germany have really good clearance rates for homicide. [2]
But more heartening, it seems like it doesn't really matter how many people the cops catch. Crime rates are still generally on a long downward trend (with some bumps along the way). [3]
I also don't live in France and think it's dumb but I think we need better information than the topic line to have real discussion of it.
It passed 11 to 10 and has to still pass in the French senate's version of their finance bill and the French government is against it. [2]
[1] https://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/dyn/17/amendements/3210A/...
[2] https://www.lavoixdunord.fr/1750726/article/2026-10-30/l-ass...
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