
Bill Gates Wants to Tax Robots - nshelly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nccryZOcrUg
======
xt00
By the same logic the person who was put out of work by a piece of software
made by Microsoft should result in the company using the Microsoft product to
create value should be taxed as well. Right? So his statement that robot
companies should not be concerned is pretty disingenuous if you ask me. Of
course they will be concerned along with the companies. We should be coming up
with incentives to give people jobs rather than negative reasons to stop them
from disappearing. Like would many companies hire more people if the
government paid them a subsidy to hire more people? Probably they would. Those
same people pay income tax so it middles out or something.. :)

~~~
nshelly
I think Gates meant this more as a thought experiment, since he can't
seriously think we can define a "robot." We need to find ways to cope with the
speed of automation, by finding more revenue for putting displaced people back
to work. How can we get the labor participation rate (62% and dropping) back
to the pre-recession levels, as we fight both aging and automation.

~~~
toomuchtodo
> How can we get the labor participation rate (62% and dropping) back to the
> pre-recession levels, as we fight both aging and automation.

You don't? You use automation to deliver consumer excess so people don't have
to work anymore. The problem is not the automation and job loss; its who is
capturing the benefits (ie corporations and shareholders).

Slavery is wrong (communism). Not allowing the patenting or copyright of
automation or algorithms is just fine (socialism).

Note: In my scenario, I'm not taking your ability to operate you own
automation or code away; I'm simply removing artificial government
restrictions on its use and distribution. What the patent and copyright office
giveth, they taketh away.

Also, creators are going to create even if they're not permitted to reap
outsized rewards from their creations.

EDIT: Since HN throttling has kicked in and I can't reply directly:

> Limiting the returns means limiting the risks people are willing to take.

@skookumchuck: If your basic needs are met, what risks are you taking? How is
it different than founders who come from rich families so a startup has no
risk?

The more people we can meet the basic needs of (again, with automation), the
more people who can take "shoot the moon" risks safely.

~~~
skookumchuck
> creators are going to create even if they're not permitted to reap outsized
> rewards from their creations.

Limiting the returns means limiting the risks people are willing to take.

------
zxcvvcxz
Seriously?

We all know who Bill Gates is, but let's just examine this proposition as if
someone else said it, maybe someone anonymous or who lacks prestige.

We would tell them that sewing machine aren't taxed; farm equipment isn't
taxed; street sweepers aren't taxed. We would tell them that productivity
through technological innovation is an essential ingredient to our economy and
that human needs are ever-evolving, and new jobs will be created just like
they always have been.

> I am reminded of a story that a businessman told me a few years ago. While
> touring China, he came upon a team of nearly 100 workers building an earthen
> dam with shovels. The businessman commented to a local official that, with
> an earth-moving machine, a single worker could create the dam in an
> afternoon. The official’s curious response was, “Yes, but think of all the
> unemployment that would create.” “Oh,” said the businessman, “I thought you
> were building a dam. If it’s jobs you want to create, then take away their
> shovels and give them spoons!”

~~~
onion2k
_new jobs will be created just like they always have been_

I think that hypothesis is what Bill Gates is questioning. The rate of change
is _far_ quicker than anything we've seen before, so using historical examples
of how jobs have been created when technology puts people out of work as
evidence of what will happen is grossly flawed. There's a possibility that we
won't invent new jobs in time. We should think about what that means.

~~~
mnsc
> We should think about what that means

Free market economy doesn't think ahead, that's both it's strength and
weakness. Government tries to think ahead. A taxation on robots might be a way
to ease the road to the future _if_ the market doesn't invent jobs in the rate
robots/automation in general takes them away. If you are a person with faith
in the market the argument is easy, it's non-marketist to think ahead and the
market will invent jobs because supply/demand.

My take on this that for the market to be able to invent those jobs the
economy has to become virtual. So the solution from the Government should be
heavy subsidies to VR equipment, give the extremely poor extremely powerful
gaming rigs and install tubes with free food(ish) to everyone. Then the market
will survive, matrix style.

~~~
davidivadavid
> Free market economy doesn't think ahead, that's both it's strength and
> weakness.

It's not the first time I read such a thing, but I'm curious: what makes you
think free markets don't think ahead? Don't most businesses try to anticipate
future demand? Do such things as futures markets not exist? Aren't stocks
valued as discounted cashflows of future dividends?

~~~
mnsc
Well I was referring to the parent comment.

> There's a possibility that we won't invent new jobs in time. We should think
> about what that means.

Of course the market ponders the future but only in order to make the largest
profits and it can only think about things that easily can be reduced to
money/value. So what I meant was more that it can't think about the "meaning"
of a current trend, ie jobs going away. In retrospect it _can_ see what the
change "meant" for the economy.

What I'm saying that that we can try to think about the possibility that
automatization will eat jobs at a rate greater than it creates jobs. We can
hypothesize that there will be a new equilibrium in the future. If that time
is decades away and during this process many people will be thrown out of a
meaningful/constructive way of life where you have a job into a highly
stressful hankering along on random shit it might be a good idea that we
together (those who have jobs) pool a part of our income and provide something
like a minimum wage (or something that we think out which is super way better)
by taxation. Sacrificing a bit of the speed of which the the total capital
accumulates with the 1% in order to provide a better life for the 99%.

~~~
mnsc
I'm a swedish social democrat, I really shouldn't be discussing politics on
HN.

------
frik
He wanted a pay-to-view internet super-highway too. Only the consumers decided
and favored the open WWW instead of his The Microsoft Network (as can be found
preinstalled in Win95) - He had to rewrite his The Road Ahead 1995 book after
6 months, as WWW won. (first edition is hardcover, second edition is
paperback)

~~~
dopeboy
That piqued my curiosity - didn't know that.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSN_Dial-
up](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSN_Dial-up)

~~~
frik
Video of The Microsoft Network - 1995 advertisement video with young Jennifer
Aniston actress:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGYcNcFhctc&t=17m44s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGYcNcFhctc&t=17m44s)

~~~
dbg31415
And Matthew Perry!

But seriously... angry dudes talking about music nuances without realizing
that sarcasm doesn't translate over typing, and cat photos. Things haven't
changed that much...

Until you watch about 30 seconds here... remember this is a MARKETING video.
Ha, wow that's changed... a lot. Can you imagine any marketing video today
going into technical detail like this?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGYcNcFhctc&t=44m30s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGYcNcFhctc&t=44m30s)

------
WheelsAtLarge
This is a very smart idea. Taxes' primary function is to finance what can only
be provided by government in our society. With the advent of robots as a major
part of our working force taxing them is a way to get money for the public
good. Why shouldn't they be taxed? The alternative is for the robots and their
owners to get a free ride while still using society's infrastructure. Taxing
robots is probably not enough. I suspect in time we'll need to find a tax, or
an equivalent, for algorithms too.

~~~
witty_username
By that logic, we should tax cars, computers, calculators.

The owners already pay taxes though. Why should they pay additional tax for
using robots?

~~~
xellisx
The owner pay taxes for all sorts of things, but the companies used robots to
cut out human interaction, which means lower money paid out for those workers.
Of course laws let the companies "export" the jobs to other countries for
lower wages since the 70's.

~~~
witty_username
Some people lose temporarily and others win. What is wrong with that? That
inequality is how capitalism works.

> Of course laws let the companies "export" the jobs to other countries for
> lower wages since the 70's.

That's wonderful. Poor people's wages are rising and global inequality is
decreasing thanks to that.

~~~
xellisx
Capitalism needs to regulated, or we end up were we are now, where CEO make so
much money, vs the combined work force.

Exporting jobs to places that have lack of birth control, is just exploiting
the worker. Also exporting jobs, like IT, to countries to cut the bottom line,
when the workers are not skilled enough, and what I feel, don't care enough to
learn about stuff beyond what a script tells them, then it's bad. If they were
outsource jobs to farmers in the middle of Siberia to design fighter aircraft
for the US because they got an education on basic aerodynamics... "Round egg
is better than square".

~~~
witty_username
> Capitalism needs to regulated, or we end up were we are now, where CEO make
> so much money, vs the combined work force.

The CEOs get high pay because their skillset is rare.

Exporting jobs is the opposite of exploitation. How can more choice harm poor
workers?

> Also exporting jobs, like IT, to countries to cut the bottom line, when the
> workers are not skilled enough, and what I feel, don't care enough to learn
> about stuff beyond what a script tells them, then it's bad.

The quality may be the lower but the price is also lower.

------
whazor
A green party here in Netherlands promotes to remove income taxes and only tax
the raw materials extracted from earth and coming from the border.

------
kevinnk
Bill Gates is a super smart guy, so I'll assume there's an argument I've
missed, but how does this make any sense? If automating factory jobs "frees up
labor" (as he says) to become teachers and healthcare workers, wouldn't the
income tax from the new teachers and healthcare workers just replace the lost
tax from the factory workers?

~~~
Gustomaximus
Teachers and healthcare works need to be paid in the first place. How would
this be funded?

~~~
chongli
By a land value tax. Taxing robots is a bad idea. Who decides how big, how
small, how productive or how inefficient a robot should be? Pretty much any
robot tax you can think of will skew the robot market and the distortions
could be very bad for productivity. Land value taxes are nice and out of the
way. They don't tell people how to run their lives. They merely tax people on
an egregious form of unearned wealth.

------
LoudTechie
How come a robot pay taxes? It will be paid by the creators or the owner of
that robot Which means that owner/creator will pay double taxes. Including his
own and his robot's taxes.

~~~
gnaritas
That's exactly the point, those taxes will help cover all the people now
unemployed by those robots.

~~~
witty_username
Should the same have been done when calculators made human calculators
unemployed?

~~~
coralreef
Depends how many human calculators lost their jobs. If it was a big part of
society, then it may have been a good idea.

~~~
witty_username
Why?

In the long-term disruptions and changes in jobs are part of the changes in
the world. These people are unemployed temporarily and will lose some wages in
the short-term but in the long term they will benefit from technological
changes.

Taxing innovation is bad. If you want to achieve social welfare goals why not
use NIT (negative income tax) or less preferably, UBI (universal basic
income)?

Why should people using robots pay for it rather than everybody? After all,
many people (in the long-term, everybody) indirectly benefit from the usage of
robots. It's a net economic win.

~~~
coralreef
_If you want to achieve social welfare goals why not use NIT (negative income
tax) or less preferably, UBI (universal basic income)?_

The money for this would have to come from somewhere. Thus it makes sense to
tax the biggest beneficiaries, the capital owners who permanently replaced
workers with machines. They're paying because they're gaining the most.

The world population is something like ~7.5 billion people. Everyone needs
some form of meaningful employment and income.

~~~
witty_username
> The money for this would have to come from somewhere. Thus it makes sense to
> tax the biggest beneficiaries, the capital owners who permanently replaced
> workers with machines. They're paying because they're gaining the most.

How do you know they're gaining the most? That depends on the relative
elasticities.

Economics is not zero-sum. Even the unemployed people will gain in the long-
term as the gains trickle down and/or they gain from other technological
advances.

> The world population is something like ~7.5 billion people. Everyone needs
> some form of meaningful employment and income.

See lump of labor fallacy. There are always jobs, but people don't take them
because the wages are too low.

~~~
coralreef
_How do you know they 're gaining the most?_

Because profits go up, but wages are stagnant. Corporations are increasingly
cutting benefits, pensions, and treating employees as contractors and
outsourcing. Millennials today are poorer than their parents were. This is the
age we live in, profit maximization over everything else. The rich got richer,
but the middle class and poor haven't seen any of these gains. Why should
anyone believe that anything would change otherwise?

 _Even the unemployed people will gain in the long-term as the gains trickle
down and /or they gain from other technological advances._

In the short run, depending on how rapidly automation occurs, this class of
people will suffer greatly. They will need to be retrained and educated. It
may be worthwhile for the state to invest in its people.

 _There are always jobs, but people don 't take them because the wages are too
low._

If the only jobs available are low paying with terrible conditions, then
that's not a society you want to live in.

Its convenient to hide behind the economic theories, making sure the graphs
line up so we don't see any deadweight losses or inefficiencies. But the
practicality of it is always a shade darker. People cheat, monopolies are
held. Gains don't always trickle down.

~~~
gnaritas
> They will need to be retrained and educated.

And that's not even always possible. People who are easily replaced by robots
aren't going to suddenly start building those robots; it's likely above their
intellectual ceiling. As low skilled jobs are replaced by fewer and fewer high
skilled jobs, low skilled workers will be left permanently out in the cold.

Education can be a solution generationally, but the notion that an older
person is going to suddenly go back to school to learn a new trade is simply
not how people in general work.

~~~
witty_username
See lump of labour fallacy.

No, they can still build robots inefficiently at low wages. And thanks to the
heavy automation their real wage would be decent.

> older person is going to suddenly go back to school to learn a new trade is
> simply not how people in general work.

What if they have good incentives to go back to school?

~~~
gnaritas
> See lump of labour fallacy.

I don't need to, I'm not making it.

> What if they have good incentives to go back to school?

No amount of schooling will make the half of the population with an IQ below
100 able to hold a high tech knowledge job. You are ignoring the realities of
the human condition. All of mankind simply cannot and won't ever be able to do
knowledge work. When you kill the low skill labor jobs with automation, you
kill the only jobs some people will ever be able to do.

~~~
witty_username
The people can take jobs with low nominal wages which will have higher
purchasing power due to automation. Jobs never run out; see lump of labour
fallacy.

~~~
gnaritas
> Jobs never run out

We're discussing the fact that change is happening faster than people can
adapt; that long term jobs won't run out has no bearing on the issue being
discussed, that the rate of automation is happening faster than people can
adjust hurting low wage workers. Beyond that, when intelligent machine are
invented, that fallacy will be outdated, the past is not always prologue.
Intelligent machines are unprecedented in human history, this will invalidate
many old fallacies. Jobs for low skilled people will run out, it's inevitable.

------
LinuxFreedom
A very interesting book to to gain a clear understanding: "Killing the Host"
by Michael Hudson

[http://michael-hudson.com/2015/09/killing-the-host-the-book/](http://michael-
hudson.com/2015/09/killing-the-host-the-book/)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mH8FWrbzxEs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mH8FWrbzxEs)

Almost everything Mr. Gatez does is wrong and became a big problem for
humanity - Windows, his investments in GMOs and atomic power and US pharma
companies that are blackmailing poor countries - with this piece the most
important thing he does: justify tax on work as something good. Sure, a few
percent of taxes are used for public wealth (good thing!), but the biggest
part nowadays is extracted and transformed into profits for rich individuals
and companies.

As democratic control of how taxes are used seems to be of no interest for the
public, the system that was built for more participation is transformed into a
profit-extracting machine for international criminal organizations.

But maybe the robot tax idea can trigger a general discussion about what
should be taxed and what not. Please add the book by Mr. Hudson to these
discussions.

------
martalist
First question, how do you define a robot?

~~~
GoToRO
Somebody who works in a corporation... :)

------
BrailleHunting
To capture more corporate wealth, also raise corporate taxes to previous
levels when unions functioned and the middle-class flourished. Doing so would
capture more gains which can pay for vital social services like healthcare,
food security and generally provide for less than obscenely-brutal poverty.

------
paulsutter
Middle managers wont get replaced by robots that prepare powerpoints and know
how to compliment their boss. They'll be replaced by algorithms that eliminate
any need for their role. Is a 3d printer a robot?

Normally I'm impressed by Bill Gates' thinking, but this seems half-baked.

~~~
ak4g
> Normally I'm impressed by Bill Gates' thinking, but this seems half-baked.

I would submit that that has more to do with the
summarizing/simplifying/editing done by Quartz to represent Gates' views on
the topic in 1:43.

------
jdhopeunique
These robots and AI replacing humans stories are just a distraction to take
focus off of immigration. AI is a convenient scapegoat to take attention off
an issue that is potentially more politically disruptive to tech companies
interests.

------
noplay
Interesting Benoît Hamon a french candidate to presidential propose the same
idea. The definition of robot is not clear for the moment.

~~~
majewsky
The definition of "robot" is the hard part here. Just this week I saw a
newspaper article arguing that we could tackle automation by giving one of the
robots in an automated factory to each of the displaced workers, so that they
would each own a robot and earn the robot's income. I just sat there and
chuckled because obviously the author thinks of robots stricly in terms of
movie characters like C3PO.

Is Siri a robot? Or is Siri thousands of robots working in concert to create
the illusion of a single agent?

------
_dirtyjimmy_
good idea

