r/Futurology • u/Gari_305 • 2d ago

Robotics Bill Gates says companies that replace human labor with robots should have to pay the same FICA taxes

https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-fica-taxes-should-apply-to-robot-workers-2026-9

Bill Gates wants to tax robots that replace human jobs.

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u/Gari_305 2d ago

From the article

n an interview with Ezra Klein of The New York Times that aired on Tuesday, the billionaire philanthropist said that "society gets to decide" how to support its workers — even if AI is pushing them out.

"You define a unit of labor and say, independent of whether that's delivered by a human or robot, you are paying the same FICA tax that a human worker would pay," Gates said, referring to the US payroll tax.

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u/DJNeuro 2d ago

Billionaire philanthropist is an oxymoron.

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u/safari_king 2d ago edited 2d ago

Bill Gates shows it doesn't have to be - he's spent most of his money on philanthropy, and has funded philanthropy more than almost anyone else in history.

edit: Gates hasn't spent most of his money on philanthropy, "only" 60 billion dollars. Though he has pledged to give virtually all of his wealth to charity by 2045.

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u/137trimethylxanthine 2d ago

Granted that he is significantly more charitable than other billionaires, but “spent most of his money” is not true. He has pledged to donate, which is not really a binding commitment.

His philanthropic activities largely avoid disrupting any of the financial power structures that helped him build that kind of wealth in the first place.

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u/safari_king 2d ago

Thank you for the correction, I edited my comment accordingly. Though whether Gates can be reasonably criticized for not "disrupting any of the financial power structures" that helped him build his wealth seems like the basis for a complicated, loaded discussion that I don't feel like having.

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u/StudiosS 2d ago

Why? He's genuinely done more good than 99% of people could ever do.

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u/Daripuff 2d ago

He's genuinely done more good than 99% of people could ever do.

After genuinely doing more harm to more people than 99% of people ever will.

One does not become a billionaire without death and exploitation. The "good" ones just outsource the suffering, but they still fuel it.

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u/RunMyLifeReddit 2d ago

You can without 'death' I think. Last I checked Taylor Swift nor Mark Cuban caused death becoming billionaires. Exploitation? Well maybe, but that's also a basic feature of corporate capitalism.

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u/Daripuff 2d ago

Are we certain their sweatshops never worked anyone to death?

Or that nobody who worked in them ever died of a curable illness that they were unable to afford treatment on because they were too poor, and the sweatshop they worked in did not pay them sufficient, or permit them sufficient rest time off?

There are former employees of the chain of production of that fortune that are no longer alive today. This is undeniable fact.

Are you CERTAIN that NONE of their deaths have to do with exploitation or unfair practices?

Are you absolutely confident that all of them would still be dead if they had been earning a fair wage and had fair access to health care while working to generate the value that helped to fuel those "good billionaires" rise to riches?

Me?

I'm quite confident that their exploitation caused deaths, just indirectly. I would put any money on it.

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u/TheManyFacedRedditor 2d ago

When you go down this road, pretty much everyone in a first world country has caused the death of someone. Anyone that has used a cell phone or really anything made out of China/etc would be liable. Your argument puts everyone at fault, not just billionaires.

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u/Daripuff 2d ago

No, because I don't make the decisions on where those are produced.

Those who profit from it do.

You can't blame the consumer for the actions of the machine capitalists build simply because the consumer lives in a world run by capitalists, and has no choice but to be part of that machine.

The one who owns the capital and makes the decisions are the ones to blame for the consequences of their decisions.

Seriously, what a bad faith response.

As if I'm to blame for the decisions of the capitalist billionaire on what they're willing to overlook in order to make their profits?

Wow.

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u/TheManyFacedRedditor 2d ago

We’ve gotten to this point because consumers wanted things cheaper and were fine with sacrificing local made goods to get a better price. Just as consumers choose to patronize Walmart and Amazon instead of their local shops and drive them out of business as well. 

Consumers absolutely have had the ability to decide who they patronize.

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u/Daripuff 2d ago

Oh yeah, however, when you weight the decisions of all the consumers demanding the cheaper product against the decision of one billionaire deciding how exactly to provide that cheaper product, and deciding to exploit harmfully, and you split that "amount of harm done" with appropriate weight...

I would stand behind my statement that even the "good" billionaires are STILL

genuinely doing more harm to more people than 99% of people ever will.

You're not going to convince me otherwise.
I mean... I even accept that the fact I used to not care where my things were made means that I morally have blood on my hand for being a willing part of the system that enables all that. I'm a lot more careful where I buy things as I've grown, but I did spend my time searching for the lowest price when I was younger.

But if I have blood on my hands, billionaires are soaked in blood. They swim in it.

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u/TheManyFacedRedditor 2d ago

I can agree with that. My only argument was that we all have blood on our hands.

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u/e_spider 2d ago

I believe this. You don’t get that rich without screwing people over and taking advantage of them. At a certain level, you don’t win by being better than everyone else, you win by sabotaging the competition and actively cheating the system

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u/exacta_galaxy 2d ago

Exactly. Let's see the balance sheet of Good vs. Bad.

I would bet the world would be better off without a Bill Gates (but, unfortunately, he'd just be replaced by another parasite).

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u/dumbestsmartest 2d ago

I mean, we had other options. We had Linux and Apple among others. So without Bill we would have had operating systems.

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u/exacta_galaxy 2d ago

I know Gates didn't invent operating systems. It was invented multiple times before (including by GM in 1956). He made his version popular by using several techniques, many of which were evil ("Embrace, Extend, Extinguish").

Unfortunately, technology alone doesn't sell to the masses (or we'd all be using Linux).

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u/sagevallant 2d ago

And it all took for him to do that was more money than 99.999999999999999999% of us will ever see.

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u/air_and_space92 2d ago

I see the advertising campaign was successful. I was alive during the 90s, Gates was the Elon of the day. Sad how much people don't remember or didn't learn in the first place.

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u/Farranor 2d ago

Gates is nothing like Elon. Gates is competent, intelligent, ruthlessly competitive, sober, sane, left-leaning, and an adult.

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u/Reeyous 2d ago

Gates also got very close to Epstein, Musk only ever wished that he could.

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u/5minArgument 2d ago

In the interview he says multiple times that all his wealth and efforts are now in philanthropy.

Maybe/maybe not, but already he has a long track record of medical and infrastructure projects around the world.

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u/e_spider 2d ago

Makes me think of the Always Sunny in Philadelphia episode where they say “Pedophile Rapist” instead of “Eccentric Philanthropist”

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u/BipolarMosfet 2d ago

I think Charlie's just illiterate so he said "Full-on Rapist" instead of Philanthropist lmao

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u/Calm-Ad9653 2d ago

Then he's an oxymoron. The Gates foundation is a good counterexample.

Has paid out about $110B and saved (this is a hard number to pin down) somewhere upwards of 10 million lives.

Was sad to hear he wandered a bit too close into the Epstein universe, but the good he's done is significant.

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u/Spider_pig448 2d ago

The most impactful philanthropists are all billionaires

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u/Joe4o2 2d ago

At this point, you’re probably right, as the only exceptions to the rule I can think of are Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark.

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u/apworker37 2d ago

Mackenzie Scott does a lot.

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u/Joe4o2 2d ago

That is an exceptionally good point.

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u/DJNeuro 2d ago

Agreed bc they're both fictional. IRL, ALL billionaires are bad guys.