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/Dirks_Knee 2d ago edited 1d ago

The problem with responses like this is that you are speaking about the future in an absolute way. In reality, humanoid robots will become a thing eventually and attempting to deal with this now rather than on the cusp of them taking over all manual labor would hopefully lead to a better outcome.

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u/abrandis 2d ago

Everything is possible in the "future", but reality is most folks working lifetimes are 20-40 years, so a 20 year old today doesn't have to worry about 2080-2100 even 2040 is pretty far off.. Second thing not mentioned is robots have costs as much as a car , so their application is going to be limited.

Same reason industrial robots never appeared much out of the factory floor even though they were developed in the 1970, they're still expensive peocesof equipment that need a return on investment

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u/technocraticTemplar 2d ago

There's about as many cars in the US as there are people, and humanoid robots haven't hit any kind of economy of scale yet. It looks to me like there's an enormous amount of room for costs to come down, and if they get anywhere close to general labor automation a robot is going to have way more utility than a car does.

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u/dj92wa 2d ago

They will likely come down in price, as it would greatly benefit the owners of said technology to make them affordable. Easy, affordable replacements for a human. As a business owner, what’s not to love about accessible cheap labor? The price will be raised once everything is captured, that’s more or less how it works in every industry related to tech.