Bill Gates: Robots Should Pay Taxes

I watched the video, and what he's saying is that humans are good at tasks that require empathy and human connection - he used the example of caring for the infirm / elderly, or teaching kids. Those tasks are not suited for automation. He states that there is a high demand for those human tasks. Meanwhile, robots are automating repetitive tasks, reducing the need and demand for humans to perform those tasks. Those repetitive tasks are more suited for automation (robots) than for human labor.

He says that it is common that the compensation for those humans who perform teaching and human care tasks is commonly provided through collected taxes and that prior to automation, the incomes of those humans doing repetitive tasks would have been taxed.

So - less task dollars coming in for the payment of compensation for the completion of repetitive tasks, and more demand for human tasks performed by humans that are typically paid with tax dollars. This could be a problem, and he's proposing a solution - tax the robots for their production.

I find it ironic that taxing automation is is solution, since his fortune was built on a company instrumental in automation and reducing number of humans required to do an equal amount of work. However, his commitment to philanthropy is noteworthy and he could hardly be accused of outright hypocrisy.

In the short term, he does miss the boat a little bit. As automation increases, it forces costs of production down. An automobile, or loaf of bread, or basket made by 'free' labor will cost less to make than the identical item made by a human. Ignoring external influences, it would allow it to be sold for less. In fact, (and I'm mentally pulling up Adam Smith now) automation is a natural evolution of the idea of job specialization, in which a person specializing in a job is more efficient than a person who tries to do all tasks. Viewed from this perspective, taxing automation is as ludicrous as deciding to tax someone who decided to be a specialized baker instead of a person who found and cleared a field, cleared the field, built a farmhouse and mill, planted seed, grew and harvested seed, all to bake their bread.

In the long term, we as a society have to figure out what we're going to do when very few control the vast means of production, when there are far fewer human-ideal tasks than there are available humans to do them, and we have a population with nothing to do with no obvious means of supporting themselves.
 
I said this back in the early 90's and I'm sure somebody said it long before I did. I'd like to ask Bill if he came up with that on his own or if he read it somewhere.
 
endalykt said:
We live in an age of unprecedented productivity, with the digital revolution making the industrial revolution seem tame in comparison; yet the gains of technological advancement is going to fewer and fewer hands, further consolidating power over all aspects of human life into the hands of megalomanic despots hiding behind smoke and mirrors.

Bill Gates may be a sociopath, but even a broken clock is right two times a day. The problems are only going to grow exponentially worse over the century — it is not a question of if, only when.

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how is he a sociopath
 
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prime2515102 said:
I said this back in the early 90's and I'm sure somebody said it long before I did. I'd like to ask Bill if he came up with that on his own or if he read it somewhere.
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If gates is like most techies, he probably is well versed in SciFi fiction. I have digested several books, both recent and old that have communicated the idea that androids are sentient and a part of future society and pay taxes on their income. I believe Gates is attempting to insert that idea on a fundamental level so that in 10-15 years the average joe will not bat an eye when it is talked about. (Similar to how Wired ISP's have indoctrinated folks into accepting bandwidth caps...)
 
M76 said:
When you look at it in proportion to his wealth he's not giving more money to charities than the average person. So I don't see why he gets a get out of jail free card based on that for every stupid idea he comes up with.

And this is a stupid idea. Because it suggests "hey let's make robots artificially less attractive to industry, so Joe Unfortunate can continue scrubbing the sewers with his hands" Instead of giving Joe a basic income and letting a robot do it which has no soul and can't feel miserable.
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Where did you get the information that Bill Gates does not donate a larger percentage of his wealth than the average person? All I'm finding is that his net worth is 78 billion usd and he's donated 28 billion as of 2013. What's the average donation ratio?

People that want to tax robots generally have the following reasoning:
1) In the near future a VERY large percentage of jobs will be automatable. Some industries will be affected more than others.
2) Large and rapid changes in economies can be very stressful and detrimental to economies and nations.
3) A mild tax on automation (low enough so that it still makes sense to automate) can be used to dampen this rapid change a little. It would also be very beneficial if those taxes could be used in programs to help displaced workers.

1) is definitly debatable, but technology has definitly advanced like crazy in the last decade. 3) is also hard because it requires that you trust that the government will spend your tax money correctly.

I think it can also be argued that this sort of tax (if it is even needed) should probably be temporary, and at some point should be phased out.
 
Robots are things, not people. Do you want your PC or your printer or car to be subject to income tax? They are things that someone or some company owns. The taxes are paid at time of purchase.

If and when they become sentient / AI / "alive" then maybe we can circle back on the income tax issue. Otherwise, it's just a thing. That makes no sense whatsoever.
 
"No taxation without representation."

Before robots can be taxed, they'll have to be given the right to vote. THAT would be interesting... How many [insert political party here] robots can be manufactured vs. [insert OTHER political party here] would determine outcomes.

Hmm. There's probably a good book or movie idea in there. I call dibs on royalties. Will THAT get taxed, too?
 
{NG}Fidel said:
Yeah I really doubt he owns any machines or has run any business the way Gates did.


Also just wanna say that Trump should pay for his own flights and mini vacations as well. Just make sure you push that too, wouldn't want you to be biased.
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Whining about Trump flights and vacations... conveniently no mention of Obama. Typical.
 
I can see the shift away from currency happening sooner than one might think. Just look at how popular number of friends, likes, followers were. With the need for working to provide basics dwindling, popularity is becoming the new currency. Musicians politicians movie stars, who has that big money already? Who gets to do the big exotic stuff? Already all based on popularity.
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
Drear Mr. Gates: Keep your silly comments to yourself. If you believe more taxes should be paid, pony up your own money and send it here:

Gifts to the United States
U.S. Department of the Treasury
Credit Accounting Branch
3700 East-West Highway, Room 6D37
Hyattsville, MD 20782

typical leftist, wants to use other people's money before their own....
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You're failing to see his point with your anti-left bias filter engaged.

His statement isn't about generating more tax revenue, it's about slowing the adoption of robots that will replace jobs. It's based on the theory that mass automation may play out like this:

- It'll create a very few amount of tech/support/manufacturer jobs with decent pay (this is for building the robots)

- They'll sublant many normal jobs at first, way more than they'll replace. Companies will see a hefty profit increase, which is good, they're going to need that in a second.

- More and more jobs (already happening, btw) will be replaced with automation.

- These companies that just went full automation to turn a massive profit now, forgot that everyone else is doing the same, and robots don't buy things. The amount of people in the consumer pool will shrink and the amount of people in the welfare pool will skyrocket.

Thus, you just created a welfare state as well as likely bankrupted your company because no-one can afford the products you make.
 
^ I do not CARE what his point is as it is irrelevant. Industry changes and people need to adapt. Taxing people for your "feels good" idea is NOT the answer... no matter how you try to justify it, it is still a TAX on people...
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
^ I do not CARE what his point is as it is irrelevant. Industry changes and people need to adapt. Taxing people for your "feels good" idea is NOT the answer... no matter how you try to justify it, it is still a TAX on people...
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But taxation is totally capable of being part of the change....
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
^ I do not CARE what his point is as it is irrelevant. Industry changes and people need to adapt. Taxing people for your "feels good" idea is NOT the answer... no matter how you try to justify it, it is still a TAX on people...
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When the rate of return on capital exceeds the rate at which the economy grows (automation is doing this), we've got problems.

Stating "people need to adapt" without even the slightest hint of irony is hilarious since, you know, you're railing against someone proposing an actual adaptation.
 
I fear almost every day for my kids. What jobs will be left when they are 25 years old?
 
Domingow said:
Hi,
You do realize that the bill and melinda gates foundation give away BILLIONS of dollars around the world....right? At one point they were the 2nd most generous foundation on the planet.

People also ask

How much did Bill Gates donate in total?
Gates has put his money where his mouth is. He and his wife Melinda have so far given away $28 billion via their charitable foundation, more than $8 billion of it to improve global health.Jan 18, 2013


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Uh according to the Wiki that number is a lot higher and they're #1 on the list.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wealthiest_charitable_foundations
 
Taldren said:
Leftist always think taxing is the solution. This sudden surge in automation, especially outside manufacturing sectors, was a direct result of the minimum wage push from the left. So now they want to force automation to be more expensive so that companies will hire overpriced humans for the same job. The more likely scenario ends with the company closing its doors and everyone losing.
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But that's how the left always works. They come up with some stupid idea, and convince the people it's for their own good.
When stupid idea causes problems they come up with another stupid idea to fix the new problem.
Sometimes this gets slowed down when a true conservative get elected and actually fixes a few problems, but it's usually not enough and the bad ideas continue until the economy collapses.
 
Domingow said:
Hi,
You do realize that the bill and melinda gates foundation give away BILLIONS of dollars around the world....right? At one point they were the 2nd most generous foundation on the planet.

People also ask

How much did Bill Gates donate in total?
Gates has put his money where his mouth is. He and his wife Melinda have so far given away $28 billion via their charitable foundation, more than $8 billion of it to improve global health.Jan 18, 2013


​
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Bill Gates has twice as much money today as he did when he started giving some money to charity.

His net worth is now $85.6 billion and still climbing, meaning that he can't give away money fast enough to keep from getting richer every hour, and he should never have that much control over that many resources in the first place!

Its easy to be charitable with your money, when you literally can't burn it fast enough to keep from getting richer, and if anything is likely just a means to prevent massive public backlash that we have individuals that have the net worth of a small country, since that demonstrates how completely broken capitalism can get at the extreme ends.

If he didn't give money to charity, there is a good chance the government likely would have just implemented a "Bill Gates Tax" of 95%, and taken it from him, or he would have been assassinated.

Mark Zuckerberg is another where I find it difficult to clap when you have a 32 year old that has a net worth of $56 billion.

I'm no pinko commie, but the system is BROKEN when this happens.
 
Twisted Kidney said:
It's pretty scary to reach a point where we're being forced to look beyond capitalism.
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We just have to adopt policies similar to the Roman Empire; constant expansion of land and influence to new areas. When the Canadians descend from the North is when we will have issues.
 
nutzo said:
But that's how the left always works. They come up with some stupid idea, and convince the people it's for their own good.
When stupid idea causes problems they come up with another stupid idea to fix the new problem.
Sometimes this gets slowed down when a true conservative get elected and actually fixes a few problems, but it's usually not enough and the bad ideas continue until the economy collapses.
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I tried to roll my eyes hard enough but I'm just not able to. You really live up to your username.
 
dgz said:
Love these threads. Is this type of crazy common in the soapbox?
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Oh yes.

Jehuty said:
A new problem arises: Boredom.
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If you're bored, you're a boring person. Only stupid people get bored. Their minds can't think of anything interesting. These are the folks who need others to tell them what to do, and what to think. Very limited capacity to think for themselves.

Gates is just behaving badly now. He's probably just coming up with things to distract from something else he's doing. As others have mentioned, he's building a reputation as a philanthropist, using money he made by making windows the dominant OS using manipulative marketing strategies, stealing other's ideas, and as it grew, fronting bucks up front to get other companies to write for his OS.
 
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Taldren said:
This sudden surge in automation, especially outside manufacturing sectors, was a direct result of the minimum wage push from the left.
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Noope. Automation has been eliminating jobs whole sale since the 70's. There have been some local govt. that have raised the min. wage significantly but national min. wages haven't changed drastically in a long time.

Taldren said:
So now they want to force automation to be more expensive so that companies will hire overpriced humans for the same job. The more likely scenario ends with the company closing its doors and everyone losing.
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Gates isn't a Lefty. On some social issues he leans Left but in economic terms he is fairly Conservative. And some form of extra taxation on factory owners to redistribute income isn't really a Left or Right policy when it comes to mass job loss due to automation. Its common sense. If you don't do something like that you're looking at either a collapse of the consumer market (because fewer people can buy stuff) and/or a collapse of the govt. (since tax income will drop drastically when they no longer have workers' income to tax).

Either one of those situations would be catastrophic for business and therefore to bring political ideology into it is just plain wrong. Its simple math.
 
Twisted Kidney said:
It's pretty scary to reach a point where we're being forced to look beyond capitalism.
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Its not scary at all.

What is scary are the people who see the need to look past capitalism but refuse to do anything about it because they'll have to pay some more taxes and so are willing to let everyone/thing else burn.

Like this accelerationist crap:
amddragonpc said:
I know social security does not have an infinite lifespan but robots replacing human workers will just accelerate the demise of social security. (In the end, it will be anarchy so whatever.)
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All you need do is raise the Taxable Earnings Cap + raise the taxes on the rich some and Social Security will be fine for decades if not centuries.

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL32896.pdf
 
c3k said:
"No taxation without representation." Before robots can be taxed, they'll have to be given the right to vote.
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WHAT?! They're robots and so legally property and morally/ethically unthinking and unfeeling machines so of course they could be taxed without being given the right to vote.
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
^ I do not CARE what his point is as it is irrelevant. Industry changes and people need to adapt. Taxing people for your "feels good" idea is NOT the answer... no matter how you try to justify it, it is still a TAX on people...
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You can't adapt as a individual when there is nothing to adapt yourself into since all the jobs you're capable of will either be automated away or have too high of a skill set requirement for you to do.

And govt. is there to serve the needs and will of the people and if those people decide to do some sort of redistributive taxation on automated factories then that is perfectly legit for them to change the laws as necessary to allow that.

"Feels good" has nothing to do with it when you're talking about widespread automation and unemployment of the sort we're going to be seeing over the next few decades. The economy and country as we know it won't survive long with massive and permanent unemployment at Great Depression levels.
 
mesyn191 said:
Its not scary at all.

What is scary are the people who see the need to look past capitalism but refuse to do anything about it because they'll have to pay some more taxes and so are willing to let everyone/thing else burn.
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My thought is more specific to a billionaire and how he must feel about the goose and it's eggs. But with less and less labour in the world we are going to end up parting ways with the capitalist and socialist system of "citizen does work - makes money for company or collective - government gets a cut to pay for infrastructure" economic model. Will whatever replaces it be an 'economy' at all?
 
Twisted Kidney said:
My thought is more specific to a billionaire and how he must feel about the goose and it's eggs.
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The goose can't make eggs or live at all in that analogy without getting fed first.

Twisted Kidney said:
But with less and less labour in the world we are going to end up parting ways with the capitalist and socialist system of "citizen does work - makes money for company or collective - government gets a cut to pay for infrastructure" economic model. Will whatever replaces it be an 'economy' at all?
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You can still have a sort of a capitalist/socialist economy it'll just have a mincome/UBI as its base instead of a min. wage. If you do it properly (by keeping service job wages reasonably high) people won't have to work as much and can still maintain a similar quality of life as they do now, or perhaps even improve it some to be more like their father's (ie. 70's-60's US standard of living).

The problem is there is no political will to do any of that and a sizeable portion of the voters have been trained to vote against their interests when it comes to taxation.
 
Interesting concept. But sometimes machines make a workers job more easy. For example, a piece of software can design millions of variations of a configuration in the cloud and return back 5 optimal configurations to present the customer as potential sales. (Lowest upfront cost, lowest maintenance, lowest TCO, most energy efficient, smallest) Compared to doing it by hand where it could be one or two hand designs which might or might not be the best configuration.

Robots can also do it more efficiently with less mistakes and less time. This is particularly true when you are dealing with things like factory automation machines. They can bend, press, fold, drill, crimp, punch, drop forge, mill, cut and spot weld sheet metal on one machine way more accurately than any human can. Granted that one machine is MILLIONS of DOLLARS, but it is necessary to achieve required tolerances and selling price.

Now as to robots replacing unskilled labor...like fry cooks...feel free to tax away. But all those taxes better be used to re-educate the ADULT workforce and not some bureaucratic pet project that's a payback to some mega corp.
 
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For anyone that doesn't realize this... Trying to slow the inevitable is like trying to slow down a bolder. At the end of the day, you're just being stupid and will get crushed.
 
Many cities currently tax business on their office equipment, I just don't think a tax of this kind would ever supplant the tax income of people who automation replaces. Think about all the office typing pools that were replaced by PC's. Bill didn't seem too concerned about that back in the day.
 
wait until heatless come here and see you guys talking about his beloved waifu like this, calling her names and stuff, you guys are doomed
 
serpretetsky said:
Where did you get the information that Bill Gates does not donate a larger percentage of his wealth than the average person? All I'm finding is that his net worth is 78 billion usd and he's donated 28 billion as of 2013. What's the average donation ratio?

People that want to tax robots generally have the following reasoning:
1) In the near future a VERY large percentage of jobs will be automatable. Some industries will be affected more than others.
2) Large and rapid changes in economies can be very stressful and detrimental to economies and nations.
3) A mild tax on automation (low enough so that it still makes sense to automate) can be used to dampen this rapid change a little. It would also be very beneficial if those taxes could be used in programs to help displaced workers.

1) is definitly debatable, but technology has definitly advanced like crazy in the last decade. 3) is also hard because it requires that you trust that the government will spend your tax money correctly.

I think it can also be argued that this sort of tax (if it is even needed) should probably be temporary, and at some point should be phased out.
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He was specifically talking about taxing automation to make it less attractive compared to wage slavers. So it is a stupid idea in that context. Taxing automation with a reasonable amount is debatable.
Automation increases productivity and decreases costs, so it increases the profit margin by a great deal. So in theory income/profit taxes should be enough to support the basic income of the displaced workers. Of course this requires that companies that use tax loopholes and tax havens should be utterly and decisively punished.
And don't get me started on sports personalities who go to monte carlo to pay less tax. The 50 million you make a year is not enough, you want to cheat your home that raised and supported you and gave you the opportunity to become successful from taxes too? OK this is not a great amount in the greater scheme, it's just disgusting selfish behaviour IMO.

More taxes that is more types of taxes creates more bureaucracy, which increases the cost of taxation, therefore reducing the amount of actual money left to spend on other things. That's why I don't think taxing automation specifically is a good idea.
 
The future is base income as well as AI and robots replace huge amounts of jobs. This will also increase innovation and boost startups.

Its only natural that robots and AI productivity will be taxed.
 
I'm skipping to the end just to present the possibility that Bill says stuff like this (or what he and others say about AI as another example) in order to present a very real possibility as a way to challenge people to solve the problem ahead of time.

Assuming we get a lot more stuff automated, and by 'a lot more' I guess we have to state that the speed of automation is expected to take off at an even more exponential pace, we need to figure out something to keep people 'occupied' if something doesn't come along- you know, like mining the asteroid belt, populating the system, and exploring space or something.

You know, so something so denigrating as a 'basic income' doesn't become necessary.
 
IdiotInCharge said:
You know, so something so denigrating as a 'basic income' doesn't become necessary.
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If robots and software keep improving (they will) then a UBI/mincome is necessary eventually no matter what.

Either that or you just let most of the country degrade into extreme poverty.
 
mesyn191 said:
If robots and software keep improving (they will) then a UBI/mincome is necessary eventually no matter what.

Either that or you just let most of the country degrade into extreme poverty.
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This is your prediction, the point is to find a way for this to not be necessary.
 
You know, I might get behind this. However, I will first require punitive taxes on stoves, microwaves, furnaces, a/c units, plumbing, TVs, phones, computers, radios, clocks, automobiles, trains, planes, farm equipment, roads, electricity and just about everything else which constitutes civilization. Every single one of those things has put people out of a job because of the way it more efficient and cost effective.

That right there is the absurdity of the "tax robots" argument.
 
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257Tony said:
I agree 100%. When robots start getting paid, they should pay taxes like the rest of us. Until then, the person that owns the robots is already paying taxes.
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Gates does have a point though.
It is not about when robots get paid but about robotics changing the dynamics of the labour force and little incentive for employees to keep human workers.
As robotics become more advanced, this trend will become a problem from a social-economics perspective.
TBH similar 'stick' incentive should had been done when western companies started to outsource work to 3rd world or substandard work-health manufacturing and employment practice countries and if they still want to work in those countries without such a 'stick' then bring those factories-practices-employment up to the state of western world in all aspects, but that is another thread debate.
Cheers
 
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Jehuty said:
Perhaps you should go back to making kids get off your lawn instead of posting nonsensical bullshit like that. If you feel that Gates is wrong, that's fine - but saying that he wants to use other people's money before his own is wrong at best and idiotic at worst. Dude spends plenty of his own money - more than you will ever see in 5 of your lifetimes. He is the absolute worst pick to base that comment off of.

To your (I presume) original point of Gates being wrong though, I think that *something* needs to be done. Most people aren't losing their jobs to immigrants or low skilled workers. They're losing them to robots. If those people lose their jobs, they've no money. If those people have no money, then they won't buy the things the company produces. If people won't buy what the company produces, they themselves will go bankrupt. Not in the short term, but definitely in the long term. If jobs are to be all performed by robots, I'm ok with it. But then all those people without a job will need some kind of basic income at the least. What solution is there? To stop automation, or to allow it but make the companies pay for it to fund those people without jobs as a direct result of it?
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It all sounds pretty fucked to me. I'm not going to hold my breath about any kind of basic income even if it would benefit the system overall. Share holders are far far too greedy and short sighted on quarterly profits to ever do something like that.
 
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