The writer is international policy director at Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center and special adviser to the European CommissionAfter years of wrangling, a global minimum corporate tax rate of 15 per cent is finally in effect. These groundbreaking new rules were driven by the desire to prevent big companies, often in the tech sector, from flocking to tax havens or jurisdiction shopping. There are a host of public policy solutions that the anticipated $220bn in annual collection can help address. But even though the ink on the treaty is barely dry, it is time to start talking about a new one: targeted at artificial intelligence companies.

Generative AI is already bringing a host of societal challenges. Global job losses are one key expected effect. While the political debate remains largely focused on safety and security harms, various studies foresee deep disruptions to labour because of the technology. It was Elon Musk who raised the future of work on the margins of last year’s AI safety summit. He casually mentioned, in a conversation with UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, that we must anticipate a society in which “no job is needed”. The reverberations of that are unimaginable.

And it is not just tech mavericks like Musk who predict major disruption. A study by Goldman Sachs projects almost $7tn of additional growth for the global economy over 10 years, while expecting that roughly two-thirds of US jobs will be at risk of being impacted by AI. McKinsey anticipates up to 30 per cent of worked hours in America will be affected by automation in the next six years. Twelve-million people will need “occupational transitions” in addition to those already facing obsolescence.