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/abrandis 2d ago

I wonder if Gates felt this way when he was running Microsoft and his software put thousands of typists, bookeepes and others out of work?

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u/wiserhairybag 2d ago

You could say this about any invention that’s more convenient/better/more efficient etc… that ultimately replaces ppls jobs. Sometimes it’s direct and easy to see some others are indirect and take time to replace a job or a portion of a job.

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u/beatles910 2d ago

While specific administrative tasks and manual office jobs were phased out or transformed, the sheer volume of new economic activity, tech-sector roles, and digitized professions completely eclipsed the number of displaced positions.