SSRN 6535458
The AI Latency Tax: Hidden Costs and Temporal Inequality in Intelligent Systems
Develops ALT as a framework for latency as a structural, distributive externality — invisible, cumulative, and unevenly borne across users and contexts.
Read full paper on SSRNBuilding on the AI Waiting Tax, this paper systematizes the AI Latency Tax (ALT) — latency as a socio-technical externality with implications for temporal justice, digital inequality, and governance in education, healthcare, and public services.
Waiting is no longer an empty interval but a site of extraction and stratification.
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AI & Society
The AI Latency Tax: Hidden Costs and Temporal Inequality
Latency is not merely a technical delay. It is a structural externality — uneven, cumulative, and hard to see.