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Thread: I can See It, Now: Jails For Insolvent Robots...

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    Default I can See It, Now: Jails For Insolvent Robots...

    Robots that take human jobs should pay taxes - Bill Gates

    RT
    Published time: 20 Feb, 2017 14:33
    Edited time: 20 Feb, 2017 15:59
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    Bill Gates © Shannon Stapleton / Reuters

    Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates has called for a tax on robots to make up losses due to automation.

    “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,” the billionaire said in an interview with news website Quartz.

    Governments should tax corporations’ use of robots to at least temporarily gear down the spread of automation and to fund other types of employment, according to Gates.

    The revenue from this taxation could finance areas that are still expected to rely on humans, such education and health service, as well as elderly or child care.

    “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,” Gates said.

    The idea promoted by the billionaire is not new. Last week, EU lawmakers considered a draft plan for a tax on robot owners. The bill was aimed to find an extra opportunity to pay for training workers who lost their jobs in the wake of robotization. However, the proposal was rejected.

    “You ought to be willing to raise the tax level and even slow down the speed of automation. Exactly how you'd do it, measure it, you know, it's interesting for people to start talking about now,” Gates said.

    Some of it can come from 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,” added Gates.

    Related:
    Robots could take 250,000 public sector jobs by 2030, think tank warns

    ==========================================

    I think Bilou should be locked inside a computer game!
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    Default Re: I can See It, Now: Jails For Insolvent Robots...

    ...

    On the other hand:


    Ending 'death by overwork' bad for Japan's economy - Deutsche Bank

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    Published time: 20 Feb, 2017 14:40
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    People cross a street in front of high-rise buildings in the Shinjuku district in Tokyo © Toru Hanai / Reuters

    Efforts by Japan’s authorities to curb long work hours could weigh heavily on the country’s economic growth, a study by Deutsche Bank found. The Japanese are recognized one of the world’s most overworked nations.


    According to CNBC, the bank said in a note that "cuts in overtime hours lead to lower household income, corporate earnings, and the economy's potential output.”

    It added that labor intensive industries that depend on domestic demand and have a greater weight of part-time workers in their workforce are likely to suffer more.

    "Unclaimed overtime, negative publicity and the fallacy of composition all reinforce the 'shorter work hours shock."

    The bank cut its economic growth forecasts for Japan to 1.0 percent in 2017 and 1.1 percent in 2018, from 1.1 percent and 1.4 percent respectively.

    "Japanese employees often work longer than their reported hours in what is known as 'unclaimed overtime,' which does not show up in official data," Deutsche said. "As such, the actual extent of the cut in overtime work is likely to exceed the published data, which cannot be fully countered by the rise in labor productivity."

    It also said a decline in working hours across the economy would hurt household income and spending. That would spur a negative feedback loop as corporate sales and profits also fall.

    According to police statistics, more than 2,000 people in Japan committed suicide in 2015. Work stress was cited as one of the leading causes. There’s even a Japanese word ‘Karoshi’ which means death by overwork. The term was coined in the 1970s and is still dominating the national headlines.

    The government has intensified monitoring of overtime levels after a 2015 suicide by a 24-year-old employee of Dentsu, one of Japan’s most established advertising firms. Matsuri Takahashi had been working in the Digital Accounts division of Dentsu for about eight months when she jumped off the top floor of a company dormitory. For several weeks she was reportedly struggling to survive on just 10 hours of sleep a week.

    In October, Tokyo released its first study on karoshi, according to which workers at 12 percent of companies work more than 100 hours of overtime monthly. Twenty-three percent of businesses have workers putting in more than 80 hours of overtime monthly.


    Related:
    ‘Karoshi’: 20% of Japanese employees risk death from overwork, survey shows
    ‘Death by overwork’: Head of Japan’s largest ad agency to step down after employee’s suicide
    "La réalité est un rêve que l'on fait atterrir" San Antonio AKA F. Dard

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    Default Re: I can See It, Now: Jails For Insolvent Robots...

    In simplistic language: Japanese workers are not paid enough and have to rely on available over-time because their companies are too cheap to hire more workers.

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    Default Re: I can See It, Now: Jails For Insolvent Robots...

    another load of crap from bill gates. here is something that is true; man should have more time for fun when robots takes over the jobs. but instead we fear losing our jobs to robots and have more time for ourselves and family. if you are wondering why; the cause is backwards thinking. we kept buying the bull''''''

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    Default Re: I can See It, Now: Jails For Insolvent Robots...

    Until we have completely scentient machines, humans are building and running all the machines. Machines are nothing more than sophisticated tools we use. Taxing machines is like taxing the use of certain tools. If you use a shovel for digging, the state could levy a shovel tax making workers using shovels more expensive. At a certain hight of the tax, it would be cheaper to hire more people to dig with their hands instead of with shovels. Now there are more jobs, but everything todo with digging also got more expensive and humanity as a whole became less productive. Being less productive means humanity has to work more for the same result. That's probably not what we want. The problem is that the productivity gains through machines won't show up as increased wages of average workers, they will end up in the hands of those few who finance, build and organize the new machienes. It's the old capitalistic industrialization game all over again, with Google, Microsoft, Amazon etc. in place of the old robber barons. Taxation is always a redistribution game. Taxing increased productivity (machine/tool tax) means taxing the gains that all of humanity consuming the cheaper products or services would enjoy. The companies employing the robots would still have their massive capitalistic gains. I thinkg that's why Bill is laughing at the end of the interview...
    Last edited by Builder; 21st February 2017 at 14:43.

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    Default Re: I can See It, Now: Jails For Insolvent Robots...

    Quote Posted by Builder (here)
    [...]
    ... Taxing machines is like taxing the use of certain tools. If you use a shovel for digging, the state could levy a shovel tax making workers using shovels more expensive....
    [...]
    For the love of... life, please, don't give them more ideas for taxation

    ... although "License fees" are already darn close to it.... imagine that: "Government-certified ditch-digger"... after a two-year college apprenticeship.... yearly, renewable license upon proof of purchase of new pics and shovels... and proof of paid fees for the recycling of used tools...

    Is it any wonder that some past civilizations started dreaming of societies of hunter-gatherer with stone axes?
    "La réalité est un rêve que l'on fait atterrir" San Antonio AKA F. Dard

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    Default Re: I can See It, Now: Jails For Insolvent Robots...

    Here in Germany the Government wants the People to get a Drone License very soon before one is allowed to play with a drone. Money, Money, Money.

    I wonder if they plan to send robots to robotschool in the future to teach them a strange Interpretation of history and wild and obsolete theories about how the universe is working

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    Default Re: I can See It, Now: Jails For Insolvent Robots...

    Of course you gotta tax the damn robots. If we're all out of work who's gonna pay for the war machine?

    I wish we had more people on Avalon from Japan, China, etc. I'd like to hear their direct experience, I'm sure it's fascinating--and terrifying. I guess they've got their own Avalons.
    Last edited by Caliban; 22nd February 2017 at 04:35.

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    Default Re: I can See It, Now: Jails For Insolvent Robots...

    Well... here we go... all!


    Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto! Russia may introduce new income tax... on ROBOTS

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    26 Jul, 2020 13:03
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    FILE PHOTO: SoftBank humanoid robot known as Pepper © Reuters / Kim Kyung-Hoon

    In an era when machines may leave millions of people without jobs, Russia is reportedly exploring the possibility of collecting taxes from robots, making the payments equal to income taxes paid by human employees.

    Russian companies may have to pay 13-percent tax for using robots instead of people, Izvestia newspaper reported citing a proposal laid out by the Progressive Education Institute, an independent non-profit organization. The initiative has already been sent for review to Russia’s Finance Ministry and received support from some lawmakers and government officials.

    Money received from the ‘robotaxes’ will be transferred to a special fund that will help people in “vulnerable” professions, such as salesmen, cashiers, security guards, guides, and bank employees, to receive training for in-demand skills. According to Progressive Education Institute Director Anna Marks, up to 20 million Russians could be laid off and replaced by robots in the next 10-15 years.
    “We suggest introducing a tax comparable to 13 percent of personal income tax on the average salary of a certain profession,” she told Izvestia, adding that the exact amount would be determined after public discussion.
    Using robots is usually cheaper for businesses, as they don’t have to pay them. At the same time, the government does not receive any taxes from these ‘workers’, while risking increased unemployment, lawmaker Viktor Zubarev, a member of the State Duma Committee on Budget and Taxes, said, adding that measures need to be taken to offset these future losses in the labor market.

    However, Russia is not considered among the global leaders in the field of industrial automation, according to the International Federation of Robotics (IFR). The uptake of robots in the country is lower than in Europe and Asia, with 4 robots per 10,000 manufacturing workers compared to 710 robots per 10,000 employees in South Korea, and 322 robots per 10,000 workers in Germany as of 2017. However, the federation noted that the situation may change in the near future due to the government’s focus on new technology and the potential of Russian companies.

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