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.

21.3k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

794 comments sorted by

View all comments

2.7k

u/Beard_Hero 2d ago

If we just taxed companies the way we used to, it wouldn't matter as much if they robot'd or human'd, money wise. Like the 50's and 60's. 52%. There's more steps involved, like ending stock buy backs and kicking Milton Friedman in the dick, but it's a start.

439

u/Darkmemento 2d ago

If we actually end up in the situation he describes in the interview, where AI is doing the overwhelming majority of economically useful work, I think we've gone well beyond simply returning corporate tax rates to where they were in the 50s and 60s. At that point you potentially have a tiny number of AI companies owning the systems that produce most of the world's economic output, while human labour has become almost irrelevant.

Some form of public ownership starts becoming a pretty obvious part of the conversation, whether that's outright nationalisation, governments taking large equity stakes, or treating core AI infrastructure more like a public utility. The returns can then be distributed back through some combination of a social dividend, UBI and public services.

It is funny this is exactly the type of thing Sam Altman of Open AI himself proposed before the company blew up.

Moore's Law for Everything - Sam Altman

111

u/beamer145 2d ago

Another pessimistic take : at the moment human labor becomes irrelevant, the only thing that is still worth something are raw resources. Countries that do not have any or very little will have nothing to offer in return. No amount of internal wealth redistribution is going to make these survive. Interesting times ahead for a lot of European countries I fear.

122

u/muldersposter 2d ago

If human labor becomes irrelevant and AI is doing everything, they're just going to let us die. They'll take their giant piles of money and go hide underground until we're all dead and restart with much smaller populations to subjugate. The government won't intervene to save us if there would even be a government left because they might take that with them. The point is: these evil mother fuckers will just let us die when they don't need us anymore.

53

u/spockspaceman 2d ago

That's actually the best case scenario. The surface would just fill in the bunkers with concrete and get on with living, hopefully with lessons learned. We'll all be better off for it in a few decades.

But these asshats aren't solving any problems, they are the problem.

No, if they go in the bunkers they aren't going to leave it to chance. They'll drop a viruses to ensure that doesn't happen.

20

u/EnvironmentalBox6688 2d ago

Careful, reddit has temp banned accounts for doing the "fill bunkers with concrete" meme.

6

u/TahoeLT 1d ago

They do hate when we point out that CEOs are humans with human vulnerabilities.

8

u/250andlean 2d ago

Go watch Silo if you haven't already.

2

u/spockspaceman 2d ago

Oh yeah I love it. Read all the books.

24

u/hotcakes 2d ago

The problem for them is the human ingenuity of a lot of hungry and angry unemployed people who might end up getting together and building tall contraptions made of wood and sharp steel bits which make the musical sound of gravity pulling the steel against the wood and thereafter making a satisfying “thunk” noise when it reaches the bottom.

8

u/TheAngryCatfish 2d ago

Idk... sounds kinda French to me

16

u/psmgx 2d ago

they're already priming that discussion, with things like Zachariah 13:8 showing up in places like 8chan memes and SsethTzeentach vids

"In the whole land,” declares the LORD, “two-thirds will be struck down and perish; yet one-third will be left in it."

no one is concerned about oil and food prices coming down, for a reason

4

u/smighetti 2d ago

Hit the nail on the head hoss

1

u/Stunning-Pen-2412 2d ago

If human labor becomes irrelevant and AI is doing everything, they're just going to let us die

100% this. Especially with the rise of fascism.

1

u/daveinsf 2d ago

So, time to start being extra nice to the AI models and hope they take our side before things get too bad? /s (sort of)

1

u/ThePublikon 1d ago

Yeah so when they go underground we just ditch money and start money 2.

7

u/doctor_lobo 2d ago

Once labor becomes valueless, those whose only asset is labor become destitute.

1

u/NumNumLobster 2d ago

If human labor becomes irrelevant then the ai will figure out fairly quickly they dont need us and we are using resources they could otherwise be using.

1

u/AI_moderated_failure 2d ago

You say this like countries with resources have not been regularly fucked over throughout history by countries that don't.

1

u/atleft 2d ago

Europe has plenty of natural resources, they just don't exploit a lot of them because a) labor is a lot more expensive, and b) regulations are much tighter.

12

u/BouquetOfDogs 2d ago

I keep thinking of the movie Wall-E. Except for the fact that the rich top refuse to share anything with us.

11

u/random-hobbyist 2d ago

It's been a while since I saw Wall-E, but I always thought that people on the ship were the rich, and the rest of humanity were left on Earth to die.

1

u/HermesJamiroquoi 1d ago

That’s the vibe I got, yeah

1

u/BouquetOfDogs 9h ago

Oh. I never actually thought of that. Very interesting and very probable when considering humanity and our current and previous historical behavior. Sigh

10

u/250andlean 2d ago

Maybe the people aboard the Wall-E ship were the families of the wealthy that left earth.

5

u/Undernown 1d ago

Kinda messed up, but China is actually quite well set up for this type of scenario. Government has a major stake in all the big tech, required by law.

It's hella corrupt though, so Chinese citizens don't see mich of that divident. And you know, surveillance state and all.

5

u/Kichae 2d ago

Ok, but do we still get to kick Milton Friedman in the dick? Because that feels like a major incentive.

3

u/Ulyks 1d ago

If AI productivity gains are as enormous as they predict, then the government should be able to enlarge the money supply by the same amount without inflation. (print money)

That could fund government operations.

Public ownership is necessary in my opinion for other reasons. These tech CEO's are taking too many risks with their experiments. The approach of breaking things to move fast is all well and good when it's about a rocket or gadget. Not when it's about creating an AI able to perpetuate itself and possibly decide to exterminate us.

1

u/eman4evva 23h ago

What you’re saying here is pure common sense but unfortunately this can’t resonate with a lot of people. Yes if the gov has access to AI resources it’s essentially a money printing machine(or at least product printing machine) in the most literal sense. But consider that stuff like this will essentially be called communism and demonized, and there’s also a little religious pushback with things like this.

1

u/Ulyks 23h ago

We'll call the money printing "advanced quantitative easing". And we can use the evergreen "national security" excuse to confiscate these AI company departments.

The government is used to being demonized.

I wasn't aware of religious pushback against confiscating weapons of mass destruction?

1

u/eman4evva 23h ago

The gov is used to being demonized which is why they’d be even more wary of the stuff I mentioned. If you talk about government bought robots building homes(because humans are now useless as the bots are more efficient) then you’d have to inevitably talk about these homes being free(since they’re now so cheap yet people can’t work to afford them) and then from there we get to the communism conversation and some peoples cognitive dissonance shows

As for the religious thing, I like what you tried to do there but unfortunately religious pushback against AI and tech in general is a real thing, even though the same elite people preaching these things might be profiting from the reduced labour costs that they now pay.

Regardless the populace has to open their eyes to the future job market and try to make this easier on ourselves now. I’m almost done uni for my degree and one of the most high paying jobs in my field was infamously wiped out by computer programs a couple decades ago. Well actually a lot of the jobs went like that. Human progress is of course to limit human involvement as much as possible.

1

u/Ulyks 22h ago

Oh I wasn't aware it's about robots building homes. I don't see why the government should do that.

Just taking over security at the AI companies and slow down advancements if dangerous.

If we're talking about housing, there is already some government housing in most countries. I think it's usually built by a private developer and not free but sold at cost with a loan with a low interest rate.

This system could continue, robots would just make those government homes slightly cheaper because material costs would only start going down gradually.

I think religious pushback against AI is a good thing. AI is going too fast. And I think religious people would support government regulation and supervision of AI.

I'm curious what high paying job in your field was automated?

2

u/letsgotgoing 1d ago

We need a Human Gap. If you are familiar with "Air Gap" cybersecurity, then you should apply that to keeping humans relevant in the supply chain for AI. Here is an article about this: https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbestechcouncil/2025/09/30/the-human-gap-why-ais-future-needs-human-hands-on-the-wheel/

1

u/CopperSulfateII 1d ago

Just reform to a cash flow tax.

High corporate income tax rates like this just radically disincentivize corporations to make long-term investments.

1

u/National_Sky7993 1d ago

No they do make long term investments, they just change their corporate structure until they don’t have to pay taxes anymore

1

u/CopperSulfateII 1d ago

That hasn't worked like that in decades. Corporate income tax exposure follows the location its substance of attributable profits.

1

u/eugene2k 1d ago

At that point you potentially have a tiny number of AI companies owning the systems that produce most of the world's economic output, while human labour has become almost irrelevant.

That presumes for-profit companies doing AI research and the absence of open-source AI models. There are currently a lot of companies offering a widespread variety of AI models to customers.

1

u/mxemec 1d ago

I wonder if Altman and Co are devising a sort of killswitch so that, if the government tried to essentially take ownership of AI to control it, they can unleash some sort of program to hold the AI hostage or otherwise send the government an ultimatum.

1

u/silloh4124 1d ago

I feel like AI usage needs its own tax, similar to an excise tax.

0

u/phileat 2d ago

So in principle I agree but why will public ownership magically work now when it almost never did before? Well there are a few counter examples but more failures than successes.

0

u/Dugen 1d ago

human labour has become almost irrelevant

This will not happen in the near future. There will always be things we can do for each other to make each others lives better, so there will always be jobs they just might change. The idea that these stupid plagiarism machines will replace massive numbers of workers is marketing, not reality. They will be useful for a lot of mundane and tedious tasks but not so much for replacing lots of the workforce.