<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"><head><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml><o:OfficeDocumentSettings><o:AllowPNG/><o:PixelsPerInch>96</o:PixelsPerInch></o:OfficeDocumentSettings></xml><![endif]--></head><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:garamond, new york, times, serif;font-size:16px"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175384"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_179043">Read on...</span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175384"><span><br></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175384" dir="ltr">Robots are taking human jobs, so should they pay up for what the human(s) would have?<span><br></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175384"><span><br></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175384"><span>Blessed day.</span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175384"><span><br></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175384"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_179119">Regards/Wangari</span></div><div></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175386"> </div><div class="signature" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175388">---<br><font style="font-weight:bold;font-family:verdana, helvetica, sans-serif;" size="2" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175391"><span style="color:rgb(127, 0, 63);" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175390">Pray God Bless. 2013Wangari circa - </span><span style="color:rgb(127, 0, 63);" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175393">"Being of the Light, We are Restored Through Faith in Mind, Body and Spirit; We Manifest The Kingdom of God on Earth".</span></font><br></div><div class="signature" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175388"><font style="font-weight:bold;font-family:verdana, helvetica, sans-serif;" size="2"><span style="color:rgb(127, 0, 63);"><br></span></font></div><div class="signature" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175388"><font style="font-weight:bold;font-family:verdana, helvetica, sans-serif;" size="2"><span style="color:rgb(127, 0, 63);"><br></span></font></div> <div class="qtdSeparateBR" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175414" dir="ltr"><a href="https://qz.com/911968/bill-gates-the-robot-that-takes-your-job-should-pay-taxes/" class="enhancr2_2992551f-9308-f312-5f95-ecd7b1338bae" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_177436">The robot that takes your job should pay taxes, says Bill Gates</a><br><br></div><div><br></div><div id="enhancr2_2992551f-9308-f312-5f95-ecd7b1338bae" class="yahoo-link-enhancr-card ymail-preserve-class ymail-preserve-style" style="max-width:400px;font-family:'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;" contenteditable="false" data-url="https://qz.com/911968/bill-gates-the-robot-that-takes-your-job-should-pay-taxes/" data-type="yenhancr" data-category="article" data-embed-url="" data-size="medium" dir="ltr"> <a href="https://qz.com/911968/bill-gates-the-robot-that-takes-your-job-should-pay-taxes/" style="text-decoration:none !important; 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line-height:19px; margin:0 0 4px 0;font-family:'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;word-break:break-word;">The robot that takes your job should pay taxes, says Bill Gates</h2> <div class="card-richinfo-primary" style="font-size:11px;line-height:15px;color:#999;">By Kevin J. Delaney</div> <div class="card-description" style="font-size:11px;line-height:15px;color:#999;word-break:break-word;">The world's richest man is arguing for taxing and slowing automation.</div> </td> <td style="text-align:right;padding:16px 12px 16px 0;"> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> </a></div><div><br></div><div class="qtdSeparateBR" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175414"><header id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175575">
<span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175576">DROID DUTIES</span>
<h1 itemprop="headline" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175577">The robot that takes your job should pay taxes, says Bill Gates</h1>
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<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175578"><div itemprop="video" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/VideoObject" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175579"><div style="background-image: url("https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/gatesrobot01.jpg?quality=80&strip=all&w=800"); background-position: 0% 34.7826%;" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175580"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175581"></div></div></div></div><div style="background-image: url("https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/gatesrobot01.jpg?quality=80&strip=all&w=800"); background-position: 0% 34.7826%;" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175582"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175583"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175584"><h3 id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175585">Why Bill Gates would tax robots</h3><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175586">Quartz Video</span></div></div></div><video author="Quartz Video" poster="https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/gatesrobot-poster.jpg?quality=80&strip=all&w=1024" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175587"></video><nav id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175588"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175589"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175590"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175591"></div><div style="width: 0%;" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175592"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175593"></div></div></nav><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175594"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175595">Why Bill Gates would tax robots</span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175596"></div><nav id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175597"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175598"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175599"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175600"><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175601"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175602">0:00</span><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175603">1:40</span></div></div></div></div></nav><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175604"></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175605"><div itemprop="video" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/VideoObject" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175606"></div></div>
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<h5 id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175616">Written by</h5>
<a href="https://qz.com/author/kevinjdelaney/" data-index="0" itemprop="author" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175617">Kevin J. Delaney</a>
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<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175618">
<h5 id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175619">Obsession</h5>
<a href="https://qz.com/on/machines-with-brains/" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175620">Machines with Brains</a>
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<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175621">
<span itemprop="datePublished" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175622">February 17, 2017</span>
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<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175625">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.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175626">It’s a striking position from the world’s richest man and a
self-described techno-optimist who co-founded Microsoft, one of the
leading players in artificial-intelligence technology.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175627">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 <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-robots-lawmaking-idUSKBN15V2KM" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175628">considered a proposal</a>
to tax robot owners to pay for training for workers who lose their
jobs, though on Feb. 16 the legislators ultimately rejected it.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175629">“You ought to be willing to raise the tax level and even slow down
the speed” of automation, Gates argues. That’s because the technology
and business cases for replacing humans in a wide range of jobs are
arriving simultaneously, and it’s 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.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175630">You can watch Gates’ remarks in the video above. Below is a transcript, lightly edited for style and clarity.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175631"><strong id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175632">Quartz: What do you think of a robot tax? This is the idea
that in order to generate funds for training of workers, in areas such
as manufacturing, who are displaced by automation, one concrete thing
that governments could do is tax the installation of a robot in a
factory, for example.</strong></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175633">Bill Gates: Certainly there will be taxes that relate to automation.
Right now, the human worker who does, say, $50,000 worth of work in a
factory, that income is taxed and you get income tax, social security
tax, all those things. If a robot comes in to do the same thing, you’d
think that we’d tax the robot at a similar level.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175634">And what the world wants is to take this opportunity to make all the
goods and services we have today, and free up labor, let us do a better
job of reaching out to the elderly, having smaller class sizes, helping
kids with special needs. You know, all of those are things where human
empathy and understanding are still very, very unique. And we still deal
with an immense shortage of people to help out there.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175635">So if you can take the labor that used to do the thing automation
replaces, and financially and training-wise and fulfillment-wise have
that person go off and do these other things, then you’re net ahead. But
you can’t just give up that income tax, because that’s part of how
you’ve been funding that level of human workers.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175636"><strong id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175637">And so you could introduce a tax on robots…</strong></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175638">There are many ways to take that extra productivity and generate more
taxes. Exactly how you’d do it, measure it, you know, it’s interesting
for people to start talking about now. Some of it can come on the
profits that are generated by the labor-saving efficiency there. Some of
it can come directly in some type of robot tax. I don’t think the robot
companies are going to be outraged that there might be a tax. It’s OK.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175639"><strong id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175640">Could you</strong> <strong id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175641">figure out a way to do it that didn’t dis-incentivize innovation</strong>?</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175642">Well, at a time when people are saying that the arrival of that robot
is a net loss because of displacement, you ought to be willing to raise
the tax level and even slow down the speed of that adoption somewhat to
figure out, “OK, what about the communities where this has a
particularly big impact? Which transition programs have worked and what
type of funding do those require?”</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175643">You cross the threshold of job-replacement of certain activities all
sort of at once. So, you know, warehouse work, driving, room cleanup,
there’s quite a few things that are meaningful job categories that,
certainly in the next 20 years, being thoughtful about that extra supply
is a net benefit. It’s important to have the policies to go with that.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175644">People should be figuring it out. It is really bad if people overall
have more fear about what innovation is going to do than they have
enthusiasm. That means they won’t shape it for the positive things it
can do. And, you know, taxation is certainly a better way to handle it
than just banning some elements of it. But [innovation] appears in many
forms, like self-order at a restaurant—what do you call that? There’s a
Silicon Valley machine that can make hamburgers without human
hands—seriously! No human hands touch the thing. [<em id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175645">Laughs</em>]</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175646"><strong id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175647">And you’re more on the side that government should play an active role rather than rely on businesses to figure this out?</strong></div>
<div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175648">Well, business can’t. If you want to do [something about] inequity, a
lot of the excess labor is going to need to go help the people who have
lower incomes. And so it means that you can amp up social services for
old people and handicapped people and you can take the education sector
and put more labor in there. Yes, some of it will go to, “Hey, we’ll be
richer and people will buy more things.” But the inequity-solving part,
absolutely government’s got a big role to play there. The nice thing
about taxation though, is that it really separates the issue: “OK, so
that gives you the resources, now how do you want to deploy it?”</div></div></div></div></div><div class="qtdSeparateBR" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1488069824233_175414"><br></div></div></body></html>