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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.
Does that include WYSIWYG word processing software that put all those typesetters out of work? Bill, you owe some back taxes.
Look. We're going to have to accept, in the near future, that smart machines are better than humans at many tasks.
So why would we want, as humans, to keep doing those tasks? Isn't that just embarrassing to keep trying? You're not actually being useful. You're just pretending to be.
So yes, businesses that make profit via automated processes should pay tax to help give people a UBI (universal basic income), but the tax shouldn't be different than paid by any profitable business.
Why keep people working at tasks they are second-rate at? Doesn't make any sense. People should be free to find something actually meaningful and useful to do, given their unique experience and talent. They shouldn't do make-work projects that a robot can do better. That's just a dumb policy.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Sounds fine. The robot's salary is $0. 25% tax of $0 is $0.
You (and others) seem to believe that "robots" are clearly defined pieces of equipment, that clearly take over someone's job. Something with at least a sinister metallic arm that you can point to and say "that thing has my job!".
Reality is that work has been steadily mechanized over a course of centuries, and that process will continu. Instead of you doing your job with a machine, it will be a slightly smarter machine doing the work - and it may or may not have an arm. Where do you draw the line, precisely? How is a law going to define what a "robot" is and what isn't? Is an assembly line one robot, or a hundred? How about the robots in your house: are you going to pay taxes on your mixer, your bread maker, your oven, your fridge, etc.? How about your car, are you going to pay taxes on that as well? Each of those devices save a lot of work, and in doing so, replace human labor. Are we going to pay taxes for all of that?
If you wish to apply tax in terms of displaced human labour, will you compare with assembly line labour of a century ago, or fully manual labour of a millennium ago? How about robots in China, how will you tax those?