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EU Moves To Bring In AI Laws, But Rejects Robot Tax Proposal (newatlas.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from New Atlas: The European Parliament has voted on a resolution to regulate the development of artificial intelligence and robotics across the European Union. Based on a raft of recommendations drafted in a report submitted in January to the legal affairs committee, the proposed rules include establishing ethical standards for the development of artificial intelligence, and introducing an insurance scheme to cover liability for accidents involving driverless cars. Not every element in the broad-ranging report was accepted by the Parliament though, with a recommendation to institute a "robot tax" roundly rejected. The robot tax proposal was designed to create a fund that manages the repercussions and retraining of workers made redundant through the increased deployment of industrial and service robots. But those in the robotics industry were supportive of the Parliamentary rejection, with the International Federation of Robotics suggesting to Reuters a robot tax would have been harmful to the burgeoning industry, stifling innovation and competitiveness. The European Parliament passed the resolution comfortably with 396 votes to 123, with 85 abstentions.
That's a new one. My first thought was "What if androids have to pay income taxes in the future?"
In a world of the blind, the one-eyed man is king--and the two-eyed man is a heretic.
Hi many pages of regulations did this represent?
I am no legislator, nor even a lawyer... but I think that any AI with the potential to harm humans should be requires to have sufficient safety features built into it to minimize the risk it presents to below that of a human performing the same tasks.
That puts human safety over cost savings: if the AI isn't safe enough, you can't replace a human with it regardless of how much more cost effective it is.
And that's pretty much the standard we see being used to judge driverless cars, not just because it's something you can measure and use to set insurance rates, but because it just makes sense.
Random thinking here. If one were to create/utilize AI scripts to provide a value for cash, is that not akin to owning one or more slaves for the same purpose? I haven't thought this through deeply, but I'm seeing some parallels. If that were the case, would taxing the "robots" help prevent a slaver type viewpoint?
How do you calculate a tax rate for robots? Does a completely integrated robotic factory (in essence just a robot with thousands of actuators) pay the same tax than a kitchen aid? What about vehicles? If they are AI driven then it's a robot and must pay taxes? Will you have to pay taxes for your Roomba? What if the robot is controlled remotely by a powerful CPU? What if it's not a remote CPU but a cloud of processing power, and more power is used if the robot's decisions are harder to make? The list is endless.
If a transport company fires all drivers and substitutes them by robotic vehicles, it will make a lot more profits (presumably), and so pay a lot more taxes (presumably). It's simpler and more efficient to tax these extra profits than any robot tax you could devise.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
And corporations should pay twice that
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
......but they already plan to legislate on something that doesn't exist yet :-)
...but that won't stop them from being fleeced!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Not with this right wing Parliament, which is just Bigcorp's doormat. Disgusting.
Meanwhile, in Brussels: "I don't understand why all the successful technology companies are American? Maybe we need more regulations to help European technology companies succeed. I hear AI is taking off, so lets create some regulations for that. That's sure the make Europe a leader in AI"
Property tax is used to fund schools, primarily so that well to do neighborhoods don't have to fund schools in poor neighborhoods. It also serves to keep lower income people out of higher income areas by adding an additional financial burden to home ownership.
One thing it is _not_ used for is to control wealth inequality in the way your suggesting. We used to use high marginal tax rates (90% on amounts over $12 million/year if you adjust for inflation) combined with heavy corporate and business taxes to discourage folks from hiding wealth in companies. Regan started tearing that down and Clinton finished the job.
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Sadly, another campaign promise he was unable to keep!
require companies to attribute profits to robots and go from there.
I suppose there are other schemes, but the appeal of a Robot tax is not in how easy it is to implement. It's in the phrase "Robot Tax". It's simple, it makes sense and it solves one of the age old problems of socialism: labeling taxation theft. You're not taxing the man, your taxing his robots.
It's silly. We should just recognize that all human beings are due a good life and work towards that end but well, humans are greedy, dumb and easily manipulable. What's that old quote? A person is smart, People are dumb.
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This is yet another non binding resolution, by this fake parliament that has too much time to spend considering its small powers. As TFA says:
The Commission is not legally obliged to institute the Parliament's recommendations but it must state fair reasons for anything that's rejected.
Taxes keep everything running and repaired. If they don't pay taxes, you will!!
EU and governments all over the world would do anything to protect corporations. The only tax they'll push is slacker tax in case you didn't find a job fast enough after a robot took yours