
EU: Robot Workers Are 'Electronic Persons' - JumpCrisscross
http://www.pcmag.com/news/345515/eu-robot-workers-are-electronic-persons
======
duality
From the EU draft report: "whereas at the same time the development of
robotics and AI may result in a large part of the work now done by humans
being taken over by robots, so raising concerns about the future of employment
and the viability of social security systems if the current basis of taxation
is maintained, creating the potential for increased inequality in the
distribution of wealth and influence;"

I'm sure everyone here has thought about the implication of automation on the
future of employment. But I personally hadn't considered the impact
specifically on social security systems in particular. Interesting!

I must admit, this all seems very murky to me. When does a collection of
hardware running some software become a "robot"? If I can replace an intern
with a Python script, does that script start having to pay social security
too? If one were to take a principled stand on this, each business should have
to estimate however many people have been "automated away" and pay that much
social security. Maybe we could back-date the impact of automation to the
invention of the steam engine, perhaps, since this is clearly an ongoing trend
and not something that is only starting in 2017.

And why does a piece of equipment need to be deemed a "robot" in order to for
someone to be liable for damages it might cause? I'm no legal expert, but my
understanding is that there are already plenty of laws and judicial precedents
in place regarding such liabilities.

~~~
kpil
Easy. Glowing eyes = robot. Special rule also applies for Tricia Helfer-type
robots, that only occasionally and inexplicably glows, and then in a sinister
way.

R2-robots are exempt, as they just beeps annoyingly while getting lost.

The thought that you could tax software for the performed labour is new to me,
but why not. As the way it is sort-of implied in the text - requiring some
sort of mechanical implementation in addition to software, it will probably
slow down development of robotics in EU, which is currently the only way we
can compete with slave labour^H^H^H^H low-income economies.

~~~
ragebol
An automation tax will reduce the inequality between owners of capital, who
can buy robots, and those who cannot. I think that's a positive thing.

The tax level should strike a balance that makes it worthwhile to automate
something but the downsides (inequality) can be counteracted by the tax still.

Ideally, the same applies to tax on gasoline, smoking etc.

~~~
duality
I would wage that there's no _obvious_ distinction between an automation tax
applied to "robots" and to any computers, industrial or agricultural
equipment, automobiles (I'm not paying a horse breeder, or paying people to
carry my litter or rickshaw around, am I?), etc. So, would you propose we
impose a penalty tax on all machine capable of doing a job that people could
also do?

~~~
ragebol
Perhaps. Imagine how much less we'd all have to work and still have enough
money to live, if part of our livelihood was payed by robots.

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maxander
It sounds like a very roundabout way of raising taxes on the European tech
industry. The part about establishing liability rules is certainly an
important thing for lawmakers to be tackling about now, though.

> "The US, China, Korea, and Japan are currently working on very ambitious
> projects," Vice Chair Mady Delvaux wrote in an op-ed last fall. "If we do
> not create the legal framework for the development of robotics, our market
> will be invaded by robots from outside the EU. The European Parliament could
> be the first Parliament in the world to discuss and create such a legal
> framework."

Its fascinating how this frames the issue. Not only are jobs being taken by
robots, but they're being taken by _immigrant_ robots! We must strengthen our
cultural norms to prevent this invasion!

~~~
krona
> We must strengthen our cultural norms to prevent this invasion!

Fundamentally this is about how the EU commission perceives unregulated
markets and it's desire to legitimize them through regulation, or at a minimum
producing a 'framework' for their existence.

The whole process is Napoleonic.

------
jeena
For years I've been wondering why companies only have to pay taxes for human
work but not for robot work, how are we supposed to live in this post work
paradise if those with the means of production are replacing human workers
with robots to extract more profit by sharing less with everyone else?

~~~
bobcostas55
Because payroll taxes go to social security/medicare. Robots don't need either
of those.

~~~
erubin
the people displaced by the robots do, and more than ever.

~~~
jeena
Exactly that.

------
xyzzy123
I don't understand at all the difference between a "robot" worker and any
other type of industrial automation.

Take, for example the production of biscuit packets. Yes you could have a
robot artisanally robo craft them. But of course everyone uses plastic
thermoformers which can stamp out millions of packets very quickly.

Would new taxes apply to this machine? How many people would it count for?

I don't have a way to make sense of this type of thinking.

~~~
illumin8
These are the right questions to be asking:

Did we tax the printing press when it automated writing books?

Did we tax the grain combine?

Did we tax industrial automation?

It seems like a ridiculously slippery slope to begin taxing any means of
production. Where do we draw the line? Should I tax a shovel because it takes
less time to dig a hole with one than with your bare hands?

~~~
794CD01
A VAT does tax all of those in a perfectly sensible way. A business income tax
arguably works as well. The point here is that robots are displacing humans,
causing less money to be paid into targeted social programs that are funded
based on taxing humans.

~~~
illumin8
Agreed about VAT. However, has there been any historical precedent to taxing
automation? Up until about 100 years ago, a huge percentage of the population
was agrarian. Somehow we still managed to employ or re-employ all of those
people, and I don't believe we tried to put a tax on the few farmers remaining
to pay for the societal costs.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
> Somehow we still managed to employ or re-employ all of those people

Modulo a world war, a revolution in a major country, a Great Depression and
its accompanying famines, another world war, another revolution in another
major country, multiple revolutions in multiple minor countries, and multiple
localized famines in minor countries. Oh, and repeated genocides.

There was no comfortable transition from pre-industrial agrarianism to social
democracy. There was horror, pain, and death at levels to which we've now
learned to say, "Never again."

~~~
mattnewton
I'm not sure how automation caused this, or more to the point how taxing it
can update have changed the outcome in any way. Are you suggesting that if we
taxed the steam and internal combustion engines we could have avoided WW2? Or
are you just saying the transition was painful before and we ought to do
something to help with the current one (without saying whether this tax is
necessary)

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wimagguc
Robots come with high up-front payments and low salaries, humans are cheaper
to hire and more expensive to "run" \- in economic terms, the choice between
employing humans vs robots is a trade-off between capital and operational
expenditures.

Taxation is still the go-to way to influence economic decision, so it's not a
surprise that lawmakers try to use it to balance out the difference. From that
standpoint it's actually not a surreal idea.

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transfire
So I am no more significant than a robot worker? Great.

~~~
ragebol
You are a _normal_ person (as far as I can know from this side of HN). Robot's
are _electronic_ persons

~~~
794CD01
Calling humans "normal" persons is organonormative. The appropriate
terminology is "meatbag".

~~~
AnimalMuppet
No, "meatbag" is a pejorative (compare "dirtbag").

"Meat glacier" (ht: Schlock Mercenary) is also a pejorative; it implies very
slow thinking.

The correct, non-judgmental terms are "carbon person" and "silicon person".
(My silicon co-worker confirms this, "meatbag" gets a red underline, but
"carbon person" does not.)

------
meanduck
Its always amusing to watch bureaucrats & friends to rationalize their
extortion/authoritarianism. Bitcoin/Mass-Talent_Wealth-Migration cant come
quick enough.

