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The robot revolution isn't quite here yet but it looks like Bill Gates is thinking ahead by proposing a ‘robot tax' to offset the job losses that will occur as machines start carrying out more tasks and replacing humans. The idea seems to be, since we tax human workers on their income, there should be a tax in place for the use of robots doing the same job.
Speaking during an interview with Quartz, the Microsoft founder explained: “Certainly there will be taxes that relate to automation. Right now, the human worker who does, say, $50,000 worth of work in a factory, that income is taxed and you get income tax, social security tax, all those things. If a robot comes in to do the same thing, you’d think that we’d tax the robot at a similar level.”
“There are many ways to take that extra productivity and generate more taxes. Exactly how you’d do it, measure it, you know, it’s interesting for people to start talking about now. Some of it can come on the profits that are generated by the labor-saving efficiency there. Some of it can come directly in some type of robot tax. I don’t think the robot companies are going to be outraged that there might be a tax. It’s OK.”
Bill Gates isn't the only one thinking about the robot/AI driven future though. Previously, Google has proposed a ‘kill switch' for AI should it figure out a way to outsmart human operators. Elon Musk has also expressed plenty of concerns about AI being too dangerous.
KitGuru Says: Creating robots with the ability to think and learn for themselves carries a certain amount of risk but hopefully smart policies will be brought into place to keep everything safe. It will also be interesting to see how companies and governments will deal with unemployment due to new automated processes.
is he proposing we tax our glorious robot overlords?
I doubt Skynet is going to be happy about that. Their tax bill must be enormous.
Technological innovation leads to shifts in the market place. It’s been going on for a few thousand years now. We’re not taxing refrigerators for undermining the ice trade anymore than we should tax robots.
You missed the point and fail at understanding economics.
Unless robots are taxed, every govt in the world is looking at a crash in tax income and a huge strain on welfare support due to the vast increase in unemployment.
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Governments finally facing the falling curtains on their actions and what they’ve sowed? No surprise there. That’s the price we pay for stagnating science, destroying the planet, and having inequality at its highest levels known. All politics being steeped in corruption at the end of the day draws no sympathies from me.
The only sad fact is the normal people pay the most at the end of the day, every time. But alas is the growing pains on having a 7+ billion population of a planet that has been stable around 1-1.5 billion for millennia. It is only with hit the advent of oil our population has exploded due to cheap calories. Pair that luxury up with its horrendous misuse and wasteful spending instead of using it to move people into an age of prosperity, politicians let some get rich while they scalped he cream off the top, and now find themselves in a dilemma of wanting to keep their jobs, but people they have been skimming from are now the ones that are advancing robotics (which goes against the wants of plain narrow minded voters).
The longer we put off advancement, the larger the fallout will be once it hits forcefully.
Well that was quite a tangent.
Regardless of all of that, solutions like a living wage would solve the issue of unemployment from automation (if automation is taxed).
Although the easiest solution would be to just force people to stop breeding and then select a few to reproduce. But apparently trying to ensure humanity survives beyond the next 60 years is a terrible idea.
Instead of worrying about taxing robots being used to replace humans in many jobs maybe worry about putting regulations that stop this type of thing from happening in the first place. Yes it is all fine and dandy to invent ways to make our lives easier but at the same time when you start replacing humans in a lot of different areas with robot workers what are those people supposed to do for a living?
It’s a terrible idea to those who propagated the infestation of an ideology of short term reaping of profits and rewards. They can’t give a livable wage because half of the world is capitalist who oppose that like it’s a sector of Hell. Force people to stop breeding?
No politician would risk this suicide before he knew he could get away with it. He’s also going to have to be the total opposite of what a politician is today. That is to say; self sacrificing even though no one would like what he’s doing, but he would do it because it’s the only morally justifiable thing to do after we have let things get so out of hand.
All of these currently unacceptable and unnerving things you mention and more will come, the sad part is all the brain washing society has been subjected to, and all of these things that are going to happen that we don’t like, are all products of our machinations. We’re currently with governance so slow to evolve, and as a result has dragged us to a pace slower than the demands of the times, if we aren’t going to take the leash some day, nature will do it for us. Global climate degradation being the overarching insurance policy the planet always has in case we continue at this pace.
Hm, you really need to stop using words that you dont understand as it’s hard to sift through what you write for something of substance (you sound like the rambling idiot Russell Brand).
First off, the good old Nordic countries are already testing the living wage idea and it was a major concern at DAVOS this year.
As for a license to have kids, it would be political suicide today….but when times get tough and people cling to anything for hope, they will go along with it. Look at Brexit. Most people have no idea about the workings of the EU but people voted for it because they knew the UK needs change if it is going to survive. They were willing to gamble anything on the possibility of hope.
Or you could just move to China. They seem to just do what is needed rather than faffing over elections and human rights.
The Nords have the luxury of attempting such a thing because they’ve had their population’s societal issues rectified largely decades ago. No one is saying it’s impossible, but it is on the global scale where power and wealth are much less under the control of governmental entities/customs.
As for your comment on the whole having kids thing, you basically said it’s political suicide today (as i’ve said) but didn’t offer a path toward possible enactment. You simply make allusions toward some massive subconscious coalescence from within the population to randomly bring it to acceptance, though global saturation of such a thing is highly improbable. And even if it was, we are nowhere near that point of shifting mindset to that degree. Brexit, was an example of how we are as poeple today in the world. Barring the Nords, we are under systems that have created change only as a reactionary move, and not a preventive one. *Similar to how people today pay doctors astronomically once they get sick and need curing, but nevermind the idea of actually working on not getting sick*.
The China comment is true, but I don’t see what you’re attempting to convey? The fact that human rights and proper rule of law equally to all citizens are nonsense constructs when short term heavy progress is required.. well everyone knows that.