San Francisco Politician Jane Kim Is Exploring a Tax On Robots (businessinsider.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Business Insider: In San Francisco, where robots already run food deliveries for Yelp's Eat24 and make lattes at a mall coffee kiosk, one politician is working to ensure the city stays ahead of the curve. Supervisor Jane Kim is exploring a tax on robots as one solution to offset the economic devastation a robot-powered workforce might bring. Companies that use robots to perform tasks previously done by humans would pay the city. Those public funds might be used to help retrain workers who lose their jobs to robots or to finance a basic income initiative. Kim, one of 11 city supervisors in San Francisco, has been interviewing tech leaders, labor groups, and public policy experts in the hopes of creating a task force that will explore how a "robot tax" might be implemented. San Francisco would become the first city to create such a tax, after European lawmakers rejected a similar proposal in February. Kim learned the concept of a robot tax when Bill Gates called for one in an interview with Quartz. It struck a chord with the San Francisco politician, who represents some of the poorest and wealthiest residents across the Tenderloin, South of Market, Civic Center, Treasure Island, and several other neighborhoods. She hears of robots cropping up in hotels, hospitals, and even her local bar, and worries about how automation might deepen the income gap.

Comments

San Franciso

[Anonymous Coward]

Highest tax rate in the Western Hemisphere and constantly bankrupt.

Re:San Franciso

[cayenne8]

Has there EVER been a politician born that attained office that didn't thing of EVERYTHING they saw as a taxable opportunity???

Is there none of them, that come from the regular people pool that know we pay too much already, and could better keep and spend our own money rather than find some new, creative way to give to the a bloated bureaucracy and hope they can spend it better than we that earned it can?!?!?!

Re:San Franciso

[ArmoredDragon]

Apparently, you consider sitting around and letting robots do work for you to be "earning".

Well, how are we going to define a robot? If it's a machine that can accomplish physical tasks automatically without human input, then it's quite broad; calculators would be included, for example.

At work I was asked to configure a bunch of switches (about 70) with the same command set with small variation, and it was expected to take about a day to do, which would mean I'd have to manually open an SSH session numerous times. Instead I just wrote a script in 10 minutes that completed the job in 5 minutes.

Does that mean I'd have to pay a tax? If so, that's absurd, and I'd fight that tooth and nail.

We can't just tax shit just because somebody came up with a way to automate it, otherwise the tech industry itself would have to be taxed to basically nonexistence. The word "computer" used to refer to a person, whereas nowadays it refers to an object. The economy simply cannot scale without automation, and it will severely hamper growth if we have to tax every little thing that gets automated.

By the way, I'm calling BS on anybody who thinks automation will make human labor obsolete or will otherwise result in long-term job losses. Yes, frictional unemployment is a real thing, but every time it happens it always ends up being temporary. You may as well argue that the telecom industry should have less employees now than in the past because automated switchboards replaced manual switchboards.

And off on a tangent, UBI is a retarded concept that won't help anything. People assume that income inequality actually matters, but in reality it's irrelevant. What is relevant and important is consumption inequality. For perspective, slashdot had an article that explained that $100,000 a year income is considered low income in San Francisco, yet that's considered high income in most other major cities. Why is this? Because costs of consumption vary by region.

UBI may increase incomes (it certainly won't do any favors for income inequality, by the way,) but it won't help consumption inequality at all, and will probably just make it worse.

Re:San Franciso

[Waffle Iron]

I'm calling BS on anybody who thinks automation will make human labor obsolete or will otherwise result in long-term job losses. Yes, frictional unemployment is a real thing, but every time it happens it always ends up being temporary.

That will certainly change once the intellectual ability relevant to business tasks contained in a machine matches that of the median human employee. It won't just be a race against simple mechanical contraptions and dumb state machines any longer.

Just because you have observed some trend in the past, it doesn't mean that trend will necessarily continue forever, especially when the fundamentals behind that trend are changing radically.

Re:San Franciso

[ArmoredDragon]

Just because you have observed some trend in the past, it doesn't mean that trend will necessarily continue forever, especially when the fundamentals behind that trend are changing radically.

Let's suppose the trend does end: Who will buy your automatically produced goods if nobody has any money to do so? If that truly was the case, then you'd be looking at more of a Star Trek style economy, and money would become mostly irrelevant. In such a scenario, consumption inequality would likely still be a thing, but a basic income would be rather pointless, as would any other form of money redistribution.

I honestly don't think it will come to that though. Instead what will happen is personal goods you own become better, and you become wealthier, with or without an increase in income (and in fact we always have become wealthier even with a reduction of income. Remember that wealth is neither money or income, it is material goods.)

Take the telecom sector example I gave earlier. With manual switchboards, you had an inferior product. Namely, you had a local exchange and all of your neighbors were on the same line as one another and had to take turns using it. Furthermore, the price was higher as well. Eventually it became one number per household, then later more than one (think "teen lines" of the 90's), and now practically everybody has their own personal phone number. And to add to that, we're paying less for it now.

But that isn't just an added convenience and a lower price; it's much more than that. Think about how much more work you can get done now that you're not waiting for other people to get off of the phone.

Or if we applied this concept to computers, think about how much more it would cost to start your own business if you had to hire mathematicians instead of just buying computers. Chances are, you'd be unable to even start a business at all, and thus you'd be producing less. But we have computers, so you can, which means the economy has a higher GDP in a way that wasn't possible in the past.

Does that mean we have less demand for mathematician jobs than we otherwise would? You bet. But instead the mathematicians we do have are now solving more complex problems, and are overall more wealthy than they would have been if there weren't computers.

Re:San Franciso

[apoc.famine]

Let's suppose the trend does end: Who will buy your automatically produced goods if nobody has any money to do so?

That's exactly why so many of us are worried about the rapid rise of automation and machine learning! As the AC below noted, it's likely to cause massive economic issues as this picks up speed.

Does that mean we have less demand for mathematician jobs than we otherwise would? You bet. But instead the mathematicians we do have are now solving more complex problems, and are overall more wealthy than they would have been if there weren't computers.

That's a cute analogy, but it doesn't cover the millions and millions of people that are going to be out of work in the next 10-15 years. Computers and switchboards only impacted very narrow job categories that not a lot of people were doing. There are millions and millions of truck drivers, warehouse workers, and factory workers. Cashiers and cabbies, maids and a massive service industry. Large portions of the bureaucratic systems of millions of offices and government are going to be replaced by machine learning. Our agriculture industry is booming, with less and less labor involved. Retirements and bleak job outlooks driving people away will buffer the impact a little, but the disruption is already here, and it's picking up steam.
 
We have millions of blue collar jobs that are going to be automated out of existence pretty soon. But the white collar jobs are also going to get automated. So what's the solution for the blue collar job folks? What do they do that can't also be automated cheaper and better?

What is a "Robot?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Traffic lights? Cellular Phones? Urinals? Where does it begin or end?

Re:What is a "Robot?"

[Mr D from 63]

Traffic lights? Cellular Phones? Urinals? Where does it begin or end?

That's the question. Define exactly which machines will be taxed, and how you intend to calculate the amount, then propose a tax. Till then its just talk.

Of course, we should tax the wealthy robots the most.

Re:What is a "Robot?"

[Doke]

What about an ordering kiosk in McDonalds that replaced a register clerk? What about AI call center "bots" who replace human operators? The tax seems intended to protect human worker's jobs. Would the tax cover such non-moving devices, when they displace a human? Will a tax like this cause businesses in San Francisco to fall further behind ones in less restrictive locations, and eventually go bankrupt?

Re:What is a "Robot?"

[0100010001010011]

"an apparatus using or applying mechanical power and having several parts, each with a definite function and together performing a particular task."

So a Centrifugal governor? Stealing jobs of engineers since 1788.

The hydraulics of a tractor plow? I demand my son a be able to have the opportunity to manually put all of those plows in the ground.

How many more people could be employed if we rid ourselves of the water wheel? I demand future generations have the opportunity to walk in a circle milling our grain.

Re:What is a "Robot?"

[BarbaraHudson]

It's obviously reprogrammable to perform welds in different positions, duh! t's not like they're built to just weld one make and model of car in an auto factory. It's generally accepted that robotic welders ARE robots, so your definition is definitely not shared by the majority.

Funds Likely Won't be Used to Help Impacted Worker

[Koreantoast]

While theoretically this might be a valuable way to help raise funds to support impacted low income workers, I'm skeptical that the funds raised, especially if successful, will actually go to help them. More likely than not, if San Francisco goes through with it, they'll just take the money to shore up the general tax base, enrich civil workers, or maybe a bit of pork for donors and the elite. Perhaps they'll say the money went to help an existing training center with a token set of new training manuals or something before the rest of the money is funneled to other pet projects. Then they'll go back and say they need a new tax to raise new funds. So unless they tie the launching of a specific new recurring initiative with the tax, it just feels like a money grab by the city government.

Re:stupid what defines a robot

[HornWumpus]

Taxes on all toasters, washing machines, dryers, dishwashers and...wait for it...vibrators?

She will be voted out in a second, once the vibrator tax hits SF. They will bootleg them in from Oakland.

It's because of American's distorte view on taxes

[rsilvergun]

we've got a very regressive tax system. Instead of demanding that get fixed we just keep demanding more tax breaks. The tax breaks go to the very rich, gov'ts run out of money & can't raise taxes on the rich so they raise taxes on the poor through new regressive taxes. Lather, rinse, repeat. There's a name for it. It's called "Starve the Beast". It means intentionally breaking the government so people lose faith in it. It's really a form of terrorism ( inciting fear for political gain, what else would you call it?) but that word is so loaded nowadays you can't use it for anything meaningful.

Or--hear me out, I know it sounds crazy--we could

[RightwingNutjob]

NOT tax "robots" and let the markets evolve with changing technology.

People out of work will find new jobs, or new places to live that aren't as over-priced as SF.
Companies will find the right balance of automation and the human touch in customer-facing positions.
And the government will avoid yet another lurch into Venezualan socialism by promising everything to everyone at the expense of Those People.

Re:stupid what defines a robot

[tippen]

A computer is a machine...

Oy

[fyngyrz]

Punitively taxing progress in order to protect the buggy whip.

Yeah, this is sure to work out for the best.

Re:Oy

[dwpro]

Unfortunately, massive unemployment and wealth disparity hasn't had such a great track record in society either. Bread and circuses are part of the cost of doing business.

Re:Or--hear me out, I know it sounds crazy--we cou

[AK Marc]

A revenue tax would tax the robots. In fact, a flat tax of 3% of revenue on all legal persons would result in a large decrease in taxes for most people, and would effectively tax robots. It'd fully fund universal health care, which is cheaper than subsidized insurance plans, and fund a UBI as well. Though, it would kick off a 5 year recession before 20 years of unprecedented growth. So it'll never happen.

SF City Budget is $9 billion

[edi_guy]

That's billion with a "B". And recall that SF only has about 800,000 residents. According to SF Chronicle, San Francisco spends more money every year than at least 10 states, including Iowa and Maine. Kim is among the worst, but every politician in SF will spend up to and even slightly more money than they can get their hands on. This is just one more source of pork barrel money for them them. It has nothing to do with robots or job losses or housing or whatever. The fact that SF is in the shape that it is in after $9 billion every year is proof of how terrible the people running the city are. Or a less charitable person might say how corrupt..

Here's an idea...

[kaatochacha]

A tax on San Francisco Politicians?

Re:Or--hear me out, I know it sounds crazy--we cou

[amiga3D]

Taxes and government go hand in hand. There are certain functions that are required and funds for those things must be collected from somewhere. That stuff doesn't pay for itself.

Responding to the "800 lbs gorilla?"

[k6mfw]

Other day on PBS a panel discussion or the Newshour with presenters talking about political situations, one said something like "Nobody is addressing the 800 lbs gorilla that is automation which is expected to reduce large numbers of jobs in retail, insurance, groceries, etc. in the next 10 to 20 years."

Which technological changes, people and the politicians they elect tend to react to the results of those changes rather than dealing with implementation. Also much of the wealth in SF bay area is difficult to tax, so go after easy stuff like sales tax and gas tax. I'm not sure how you would tax a robot, first have to define a robot (Roombas, traffic lights, urinals?), is the robot doing revenue producing work or some thing else not financially related?

Re:It's because of American's distorte view on tax

[AK Marc]

Though, that's the one "good thing" about the Trump plan. The tax plan reduces breaks.

The one thing it, and every other tax plan, gets wrong is classes of income. Unearned income is taxed less than earned income.. Capital gains is a low bracket. And taxes on people exclude corporations, which are legally persons, except for taxing. Tax corporations under the same rules as a single filer, and you'd solve all the revenue problems of the US, though you'd also crash the economy. But setting the income tax rate to 0% for the first $100k, and 1% after, for all persons, natural and artificial, then you'd solve the revenue issues, while not taxing any one person too much. 1% tax (no exemptions) isn't too high, but apply that to artificial persons as well as natural ones, and all the problems go away, and with minimal impact on the economy (other than to boost it, as people will have more and spend more).

Butlerian Jihad

[sheramil]

This could work. We'd need some form of Great Convention that carefully describes the limits of what is and what isn't a robot - is an alarm clock a robot? Is a washing machine? How about a lawn sprinkler system with a timer? Elevators? Coffee Machines? Snack dispensers? How much automation is permitted in factory machinery? Can this process be regulated by a sensor and a timer, or is that a robot too? Do they have to hire a guy with an egg-timer to stand there and throw a lever instead?

Having made this distinction, businesses will then crowd up against either side of this imaginary barrier; on one side, engineers simplifying systems until they are no longer sufficiently robotic to be taxed, and on the other side Servok craftsmen pushing the limits of the Great Convention up to where their mechanisms might be taxed. There would be jobs for assessors, there would be jobs for screaming torch-bearing mobs chanting "THOU SHALT NOT BUILD A MACHINE IN THE LIKENESS OF THE HUMAN SOUL!" as they drag computers and programmers alike from their offices and destroy them.

It might not make a great novel in itself, but it'd be good background material for one.

Re:Or--hear me out, I know it sounds crazy--we cou

[Thelasko]

People out of work will find new jobs, or new places to live that aren't as over-priced as SF.

Has it occurred to you that there are people in this world that simply don't have the mental or physical capability to compete with a robot? There is a very real risk that only the most intelligent (or connected) members of society will be able to find a job in the future. What happens to everyone else? Do they starve?