Microsoft’s Founder, Bill Gates said in an interview with Quartz that Robots that take humans jobs should pay taxes. Indirectly, he is saying all Robots should be taxed because all Robots take away jobs formerly done by Humans.
Watch the short video below. It would give you a context as to my thinking on the matter.
My thinking is this; once we start adding several layers of complexity to the use of Robots, it would dissuade companies from adopting the technology. Turns out, that is the goal of this Tax initiative to “temporarily slow the speed of automation”.
Other interesting questions one could derive from this thought is; Should Robots be treated as human workers? If yes, then should the Robots not be the ones paying the tax? If yes, then should the Robots get paid a salary? If yes, then the Robots are formerly seen as employees of the company and as a result, are entitled to some ’employee’ rights? In the final analysis, this would bring us back to the starting point where employees had trade unions etc. This implies, over the years, Robots would not be sufficient to solve the problem of cutting cost and the need for a more suitable alternative would arise. The big question is;
What next after the rise of Robots?
You might opt to read the transcript of the interview with Gates here on Quartz.
