Bill Gates: The Robot That Takes Your Job Should Pay Taxes (qz.com)

In a recent interview with Quartz, Bill Gates said he believes that governments should tax companies that use robots who are taking human jobs, as a way to at least temporarily slow the spread of automation and to fund other types of employment. The money gained from taxing robots could then be used to finance jobs taking care of elderly people or working with kids in schools -- jobs which humans are particularly well suited for. Quartz reports: [Gates] argues that governments must oversee such programs rather than relying on businesses, in order to redirect the jobs to help people with lower incomes. The idea is not totally theoretical: EU lawmakers considered a proposal to tax robot owners to pay for training for workers who lose their jobs, though on Feb. 16 the legislators ultimately rejected it. "You ought to be willing to raise the tax level and even slow down the speed" of automation, Gates argues. That's because the technology and business cases for replacing humans in a wide range of jobs are arriving simultaneously, and it's important to be able to manage that displacement. "You cross the threshold of job replacement of certain activities all sort of at once," Gates says, citing warehouse work and driving as some of the job categories that in the next 20 years will have robots doing them. You can watch Gates' remarks in a video here, or read the transcript embedded in Quartz' report.

Comments

Great idea

[guruevi]

Let the countries that don't tax their robot manufacturers take all the production AND the jobs.

The problem isn't robots or automation, it's corporations like Microsoft and people like Gates that are the problem. They pay taxes at zero or even negative rates and then expect the government to provide "free" healthcare and unemployment for their employees (which in turn makes their employees pay for it).

I'd say repeal all taxes and only tax things coming in over state borders at one rate and things coming in over national borders at a higher rate for all finished products and "intellectual property". This would encourage more local and domestic development. If Microsoft wants to import code from India, have it taxed based on the time and resources it took to develop abroad -or- if they want to avoid that, have it put into public domain.

Re:Great idea

[psmoot]

The problem isn't robots or automation, it's corporations like Microsoft and people like Gates that are the problem. They pay taxes at zero or even negative rates and then expect the government to provide "free" healthcare and unemployment for their employees (which in turn makes their employees pay for it).

Microsoft ultimately doesn't pay taxes. Only people bear the burden of taxes. That could be Microsoft's employees (through lower wages), customers (through higher prices) or investors (through lower profits), generally a combination of all three. Microsoft is only the channel the government uses to collect the taxes. That being said, I don't think the Billster avoids all taxes. Very few people pay no taxes.

I'm not sure why Microsoft should provide charity to people. I'd much rather Microsoft (and other companies) focused on producing products and services. Charity and aid to the poor is something else. It should be driven by individuals and/or society as a whole through our government. I think bringing corporations into it just confuses the situation.

I'd say repeal all taxes and only tax things coming in over state borders at one rate and things coming in over national borders at a higher rate for all finished products and "intellectual property".

I'm with you up until the border thing. Economists tend to think the most efficient and least distorting thing to do is toss all existing taxes and replace them all with a single, broad-based consumption tax. I despair of that ever happening. Politicians and lobbyists have way too much interest in putting in as many special provisions as they can.

Re:that's it. the end game.

[Gussington]

only death is left for humans in the inevitable.

The only thing that is inevitable is prophets of doom every time a technology article is released.
Had you explained life in 2017 to someone from 1840, it would be unbelievable. And a person from 1840 might not be able to live in 2017 successfully doesn't mean that there aren't still billions of humans doing just that today. So to analyse the prophet of doom a bit further, what you really mean is, a person with a brought up in 2017 would probably find life in 2087 a gap too far to bridge. But that doesn't mean humans in 2087 won't find whatever world they're living in as normal (and likely enjoying a higher standard of living)

Because Human Nature

[s.petry]

Don't pretend that science does not exist just because your narrative is harmed by science. Most normal humans don't want to sit around and do nothing, they want to be productive and make personal goals, balance risk versus security, have control of their destiny, and be able to provide better for their families than they did for themselves. Normal humans don't want to have the same job as everyone else, don't want to live in the same kind of house, wear the same kinds of clothing, eat the same foods, etc.. etc.. etc... The whole point of every story of Utopia ever written is that Utopia CAN NOT EXIST! Individuality is part of being a human, and individual liberty is the normal state of a human.

Don't sit around telling us how great science is when you ignore it.

Re:Because Human Nature

[Jeremi]

Most normal humans don't want to sit around and do nothing, they want to be productive and make personal goals, balance risk versus security, have control of their destiny, and be able to provide better for their families than they did for themselves.

The above is all very true, but it doesn't follow that humans therefore want to spend their working hours doing tedious manual labor that could be done better by a robot. (I'm not sure you were saying that it did follow, btw)

Ask just about anyone what their dream job would be, and they'll tell you. Ask them why they aren't currently doing their dream job, and they'll tell you that as well -- often it's because there's little or no money to be made as an actor or dance instructor or professional hang glider pilot or artisanal woodworker or etc. Many of these activities can only be hobbies instead of jobs, because people need to feed their children and pay the rent, and so they are forced into doing whatever drudgery the market is willing to pay for, instead of the activities they are really good at and enjoy doing.

But does it have to be that way forever? Without robots and AI, the answer is probably, yes -- there are un-fun tasks that nevertheless need to be done, so those are largely the tasks that society is willing to pay for. The garbage bins aren't going to empty themselves, and all that.

But in a future society where robots can perform most of these everyday tasks effectively "for free"; there is no reason to force a human being to do those tasks. Instead, with the menial labor done by robots, the wage-slaves could then be freed up to pursue whatever "dream job" they want to have, regardless of whether they can find someone willing to pay them much (or anything) to do that job, or not.

How could they afford it? Either because the robot labor has made goods and services so cheap that even a minimal salary is still plenty to meet one's financial needs, or because a system has been set up to tax the robots and use that money to subsidize paying salaries for jobs that would otherwise not be economically possible. Probably a combination of those two things.

Is that happy scenario inevitable? Not on the short term -- the default scenario would be that the owners of the robots keep all their robot-generated wealth to themselves, and become incredibly rich while everyone else becomes unemployed. But what happens then -- when 99% of the population is on welfare? The only difference between that and the "happy scenario" is that the out-of-work majority has no incentive to do anything constructive, and is still viewing their unemployment as a personal failure rather than an inevitable consequence of superhuman AI -- and that stigma will fade rapidly once it becomes apparent that it applies to everyone, not just to the traditional "losers". At that point, people will stop calling it "welfare" and start calling it a "basic living stipend", and if democracy still exists, they will adjust the funding levels provided by it such that the robots' productivity is enjoyed by all and not just by the super-rich.

But that leaves the problem of hopeless couch-potato-ism; so an enhancement to just cash handouts would be encouraging people to pursue their dream activities, and paying them to do so. Then we'd have people living rewarding lives that they chose for themselves, rather than sitting around feeling bad about being on the dole, or slowly dying inside doing tedious make-work.

Re:that's it. the end game.

[mysidia]

The government should impute the wages that a human worker would be paid in 2010 with a Human cost-of-living adjustment based on the Robot's job description, For a given amount of Company revenue by industry.

Then Double the quantity

And compare the Wages the Company is currently paying every month to the Imputed Wages based on the greater of the Total number of robots Jobs, and based on the Company's total revenue and Industry.

Make the companies Pay standard Employee Taxes on the difference between the Imputed Sum and the Actually paid sum, Including what the Social security, Medicare, Income Tax, and Healthcare benefits would be; Require the company actually buy in Health insurance for the robots.

Then make the companies pay an Additional supplement to Income Tax witholding for the robots called the "Automation tax".

Basically, double the income tax rate for automated employees to 60%, after already having doubled the wage, And specify the "Minimum wage" for the lowest jobs for purposes of imputing automated job roles to $20/Hour.

Re:tax profit yes but not to slow automation

[clovis]

You should watch and understand.. the movie Elysium.

Got it, you believe that movies are reality. Sadly I'm not surprised.

I've seen other's make that response on Slashdot when someone suggests seeing a movie, show, or read some book to explain some point.
Aw, c'mon people. You know perfectly well literature, movies, theatre, etc are a way to explore what-if scenario's, to make predictions, and to hold up a mirror to some aspect of reality that may not be easy to quantify. You use literature to conduct Gedankenexperiments because there's no way to do ABA testing on human society. The method is older than Socrates.

For example, suppose you were talking to someone who was thinking about morality and self-interest and you suggested they read Atlas Shrugged or something else that explores that topic, or even see a movie made from the book. Suppose they responded with "So you think books are reality". Would you think that person was being a retard or just a jerk? And it's not an XOR in this case.
Either way, saying that doesn't do anything to validate whatever point you were originally trying to make.

Re:How is that supposed to happen?

[Enigma2175]

But the problem is that with the current economic system a small number of people take most of the cake and put it in their cake vault, the workers get enough cake to survive on and some people get no cake at all. If robots can replace all the current workers then why would the owners of the robots give away any of their large stash of cake when they don't have to?

If the cake is large enough to feed everyone why are we making more cake? Just so the cake hoarders can put even more cake in their vaults?

Re:How is that supposed to happen?

[w3woody]

Dude, you can't even reasonably calculate the number of man-hours that have been lost to air-powered hammers when used to frame a stick-and-nail framed house. Or the number of man-hours lost to power saws (over using a hand-saw). Or in other industries, the number of man-hours lost to software developers as we transitioned from punch cards to having our own desktop computers, or the number of man-hours lost as we transitioned to better IDEs which allow us to more quickly find and fix problems in our software.

Or take the production of films. Can you reasonably calculate the number of man-hours lost when movie makers transitioned from cellulose film stock to using Red cameras and an all-digital production process?

And part of the reason why you cannot say what has been lost is because two things happen when automation takes people's jobs. Prices for a thing go down, but also, money is available to expand the offerings we get. Houses get bigger. Software gets more complex and more intricate. Movies contain more special effects and become "grander" and on a larger scale.

The real problem I have with the reasoning used by those who assume increased productivity (which is what "robots" give us) is that they assume, like Charles Duell's apocryphal quote from 1899 presumes, that everything that can be invented has been invented, and that life will continue on pretty much the same, with the same offerings, same products, same goods and services--but just with fewer people doing them. It's zero-sum thinking--and from an economics perspective, zero-sum thinking has been the source of pretty much most of the evils of the past century.