Bill Gates is one of the most prominent public advocates for the idea that robots and AI systems which replace human workers should be taxed in a similar way to human labour. In a widely cited 2017 interview with Quartz, he argued that if a human worker doing 50,000 dollars of work is taxed, then a robot doing the same work should be taxed at roughly the same level.
# Core Idea
Gates starts from a simple symmetry argument. Human workers generate income tax and social security contributions when they are employed. When automation replaces those workers, governments lose that tax base just as social needs such as health care, education and support for the unemployed remain or even grow. His proposal is that companies using robots or AI in place of workers should pay a robot tax that mirrors the taxes formerly paid by the human employees.
# Funding Human Centred Work A distinctive feature of the Gates proposal is what he wants the money used for. He suggests using robot tax revenue to fund new human jobs in sectors where demand is high but labour is scarce or poorly paid, such as elder care, education and support for children with special needs.
Displaced workers could be retrained into these roles, with their wages partly or fully funded by the tax on automation. Gates presents this as a way to be net ahead overall because society gains both higher productivity from automation and more human attention in care and education.