Posted on 02/18/2017 8:42:50 AM PST by mac_truck
Robots are taking human jobs. But Bill Gates believes that governments should tax companies use of them, as a way to at least temporarily slow the spread of automation and to fund other types of employment.
Its a striking position from the worlds richest man and a self-described techno-optimist who co-founded Microsoft, one of the leading players in artificial-intelligence technology.
In a recent interview with Quartz, Gates said that a robot tax could finance jobs taking care of elderly people or working with kids in schools, for which needs are unmet and to which humans are particularly well suited. He 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. Thats because the technology and business cases for replacing humans in a wide range of jobs are arriving simultaneously, and its 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at qz.com ...
Just cuz someone has billions of dollars don’t mean they got millions of functioning brain cells.
Should is not will
Gates is a globalist, elitist, fershtinkiner.
Any thoughts???
The Invisible Hand?
No body likes the concept of the Invisible Hand. The answer to your question could be free markets, which are scary and unknown but work in the long term.
Or centralized govt control, which make us feel empowered but don’t work, which I think is answer you are looking for?
Now having said that, neither choice works perfectly, but what has history shown us?
Capitalism requires adaption. It’s benefits to society are well worth the price of that inconvenience and lack of certainty in the job market although it is tough on people. The price of rampant socialism is much tougher on all of us.
The idea of a free market scares control freaks and the greedy, who want the deck stacked in their favor by the controlling authority that they bought.
Where is the toaster getting money to pay the taxes?
Next they will be demanding that robots have their own bathrooms.
Bill knows you can't write software with a degree in Lesbian Studies.
Bill, how about taxing the workers overseas writing software?
What Gates doesn’t get is that we can’t afford our government. No amount of taxes is enough, whether employee or robot-derived.
What Gates also misses is that he is calling for taxes on productivity, and also hard work.
This thinking is simply a shameless promotion of socialism and sloth.
If he wants to tax something, tax government, not productivity.
Productivity growth is the only thing that can keep the music playing on our outsized government.
Ultimately if you tax productivity, you ensure famine and death.
That would probably be fine with Gates.
Hmmm, what if it’s operating system is based on Apple tech? I don’t understand why a business should be taxed continually for a piece of equipment that will never require health coverage from medicare or ever draw social security. The advance to robots is being driven by socialists and democrats, so if there is fear of even more underfunded S.S. in the future I say double and triple up on the do gooders pushing skilled trade wages for unskilled labor.
Free markets and capitalism are not a panacea. Even Adam Smith saw the need for limited government and even lawyers.
It is the limited we argue about. Time to swing much more the other way to less govt. But as I said, it is scary, that is why most people are workers and not self employed.
I don't understand this thinking. A robot can't pay taxes; and businesses don't pay taxes - they just collect them from . . . consumers. Gates is advocating that consumers have a smaller piece of pie and that government be given a larger piece of pie.
The reasoning behind this is that government planners do a smarter job allocating resources for the public good than the market. Like every liberal, Gates wants the government to have more money; more power.
No thanks.
Gates. Shark. Jumped.
Gates is simply a latter-day Luddite if he thinks that labor saving machinery should be taxed because - it saves labor.
Fundamentally, there’s no difference between a “robot” and a power loom or power forge operated by a water wheel in terms of their impact on eliminating tedious work driven by human muscle, magnifying the AMOUNT of productive work that can be done, plus freeing large segments of the human race from dangerous, rote labor.
A smart man, born at the right time, and the right place, who by chance fell upon a societal tidal wave he was able to ride to great riches
Otherwise, he’s absolutely human and foolish and can be ignored on any other topics he speaks on
There is no real difference. Will the displaced workers be absorbed into other parts of our economy, that is the question.
I love how these people think they are super duper smart.
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