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Bill Gates Wants to Tax Robots

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Re: Bill Gates Wants to Tax Robots

#71

Post by gnaritas »

witty_username wrote: post #69
gnaritas wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 tha…

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?

> 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.

Re: Bill Gates Wants to Tax Robots

#72

Post by witty_username »

majewsky wrote: post #70
witty_username wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there's no need for jobs then that means robots are doing everything and so everything is cheap. That means the small nominal income becomes a large real income.

But where's the "small nominal income" coming from if there are no jobs? UBI?

There are always jobs if you take a low enough wage.

Re: Bill Gates Wants to Tax Robots

#73

Post by [deleted] »

gnaritas wrote: post #71
witty_username wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> 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 au…

[deleted]

Re: Bill Gates Wants to Tax Robots

#74

Post by witty_username »

gnaritas wrote: post #71
witty_username wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> 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 au…

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.

Re: Bill Gates Wants to Tax Robots

#75

Post by gnaritas »

witty_username wrote: post #74
gnaritas wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 au…

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.

> 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.

Re: Bill Gates Wants to Tax Robots

#77

Post by walterstucco »

Oletros wrote: post #37
zxcvvcxz wrote: post #12

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 highly doubt that new jobs will be created when the trend is to automate them. And we still have the problem with the people unemployed by the automation, what we should do for them?

and we'll soon have the problem of automation replacing people who automate jobs.

Re: Bill Gates Wants to Tax Robots

#78

Post by walterstucco »

witty_username wrote: post #45
dwaltrip wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because 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.

How does that not apply to cars, planes, calculators, computers, and the internet? I'm pretty sure I heard similar stuff regarding the internet.

I live in Europe, Italy, and I pay a lot of taxes on my car. Every year. Sometimes taxes are more expensive than the car street value. 73% of what I pay for gas is taxes. Is it not enough yet?

Re: Bill Gates Wants to Tax Robots

#79

Post by xellisx »

witty_username wrote: post #46
xellisx wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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".

Re: Bill Gates Wants to Tax Robots

#80

Post by witty_username »

xellisx wrote: post #79
witty_username wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.…

> 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.

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