7 ms·
Bill Gates Wants to Tax Robots
- frik 10y agoHe 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 10y agoThat piqued my curiosity - didn't know that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSN_Dial-up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSN_Dial-up
- xellisx 10y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3DudqwsRPw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3DudqwsRPw
- frik 10y agoVideo 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 10y agoAnd 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
- phs318u 10y agoYes. MSN was intended to compete with Compuserve. Neither could compete with the www.
- _dirtyjimmy_ 10y agogood idea
- kevinnk 10y agoBill 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 10y agoTeachers and healthcare works need to be paid in the first place. How would this be funded?
- kevinnk 10y agoTeachers still pay income tax. It may be true that the amount of money the government pays out increased, but the amount of income tax didn't go down. Regardless, I took his argument to be about a more general shift to service work rather than about teachers specificlly.
- chongli 10y agoBy 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.
- Rapzid 10y agoHave you seen how much teachers get paid? Anyway, much of teacher's salaries come from taxes.. How will healthcare workers get paid when nobody has a job? That's a bit hyperbolic, but he is arguing against the consolidation of wealth from automation starving our ability to fund social services as even current levels.
- beisner 10y agoI think he is saying that in order to pay the salaries for those new jobs, taxing robots as if they were employees might be fruitful. As in, there's not enough economic demand for those roles at the moment, and in a future where there is a true surplus of human labor due to automation, it might make sense to design a tax scheme that mitigates the issue of wealth concentration in robot owners.
- xt00 10y agoBy 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 10y agoI 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 10y ago> 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.
- zxcvvcxz 10y agoSeriously? 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 10y agonew 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.
- witty_username 10y agoIf there's no way to invent jobs then we've reached an utopia where robots do everything.
- majewsky 10y agoWhich is a dystopia if any large number of people don't have enough income to pay for their basic needs.
- witty_username 10y ago
- LoudTechie 10y agoHow 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 10y agoThat's exactly the point, those taxes will help cover all the people now unemployed by those robots.
- witty_username 10y agoShould the same have been done when calculators made human calculators unemployed?
- coralreef 10y agoDepends 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 10y agoWhy? 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 10y agoIf 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.
- martalist 10y agoFirst question, how do you define a robot?
- GoToRO 10y agoSomebody who works in a corporation... :)
- paulsutter 10y agoMiddle 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 10y ago> 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.
- WheelsAtLarge 10y agoThis 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.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- witty_username 10y agoBy that logic, we should tax cars, computers, calculators. The owners already pay taxes though. Why should they pay additional tax for using robots?
- dwaltrip 10y agoBecause it's a new paradigm of value creation that has broad ramifications across all of society, so the tax structure should reflect that. Tax policy shouldn't be static, it should keep pace with the society and culture it serves as they change over time.
- witty_username 10y agoHow does that not apply to cars, planes, calculators, computers, and the internet? I'm pretty sure I heard similar stuff regarding the internet.
- dwaltrip 10y agoWell for one, computers and the internet are a huge part of automation. This is a long-term, multi-faceted trend.
- LinuxFreedom 10y agoA 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.
- BrailleHunting 10y agoTo 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.
- EveSmith 10y agoThis is a really stupid idea, here's why (and this is not my opinion, this is how GAAP accounting works): 1. businesses already pay tax on their profits (if robots increase profits, that's increased taxes paid), and 2. owners of businesses pay income tax again (at a higher rate than workers, but deferred) on those same profits when they are extracted from the business (as higher salaries, dividends, capital gains, etc.) 3. if a business hires a worker and pays the worker, that money gets subtracted from the profit because it is a cost, a business expense so that subtracts from the tax the business pays and it subtracts from the income the owner of the business pays tax on. 4. instead, that labor money has taxes extracted from it when it is paid to the worker. See? Taxing robots is nonsense. So, you could make an argument that tax rates should go up or down, be progressive, flat, capital gains, etc. etc., but ... but ... what do you all think Congress does all the time anyway? This is the fiscal side of the Red State Blue State tug of war. What that tug of war does not need is more ill informed ideas. (It's OK you don't know this, PP, I didn't know it before I learned it, but BG does not get a free pass...) Bill Gates is pretty much retarded: kids, he didn't graduate from college and it shows; stay in school. I'll give $100 to anybody who can send me a link to something smart and non obvious that Bill Gates has ever said.
- dang 10y agoWe've banned this account for trolling. Please don't create many obscure throwaway accounts; we ban those. HN is a community. Anonymity is fine, but users should have some consistent identity that other users can relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be an entirely different forum. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13666377 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13666377 and marked it off-topic.
- EveSmith 10y agohogwash. people should not be allowed to call ideas smart if the ideas can't be labelled the opposite way too. I make positive contributions, I add intellectual material. I just explained how accounting works, did you understand it before I explained it? Where is your contribution to that effect? I believe contributions should stand on their own, I don't need a reputation to support my contributions, they are that good, but my editorial voice is always the same, I'm not hiding behind different points of view: I'm not trolling. If you don't like my contributions, no skin of my nose, I won't make them, just say so, instead of being a prig. Bill Gates actually is a very weak intellectual who coasts on a reputation he doesn't deserve. As such, by giving bad advice, he harms the economy.
- noplay 10y agoInteresting Benoît Hamon a french candidate to presidential propose the same idea. The definition of robot is not clear for the moment.
- majewsky 10y agoThe 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?
- whazor 10y agoA green party here in Netherlands promotes to remove income taxes and only tax the raw materials extracted from earth and coming from the border.
- jdhopeunique 10y agoThese 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.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]