Time to Tax Robots
©2016 C. Henry Martens
True emergent sentience, in a mechanical form, is coming to a reality near you. There will be ethical questions to be answered, and eventually moral questions. Some rather early science fiction has provided what we might expect as robots become more integrated into the labor force, replacing human beings. The popular laws first proposed in that venue, are still taken seriously as a method to keep us safe from our mechanical devices, to keep robots from harm to humanity.
Three Laws of Robotics, Isaac AsimovA robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.
Will robots be seen as slaves?Will robots be paid for their labor?Will robots pay tax?Will owners of robots be taxed?
Humans began to be replaced by machines a long time ago. Looms, pottery wheels, spinning wheels, even carts and wagons replaced human labor. We saw these inventions as beneficial back in the days that human labor was cheap, and life spans short. The machines helped to free people to do other things.
Later we replaced human labor with more sophisticated devices. Water and wind mills, sewing machines, metal presses, etc., and still the machines freed people from drudgery in most cases. As technology advanced, machines started to be used to protect human laborers from dangerous occupations. Certainly humans benefited immensely from the advances made in that arena.
Recently we are seeing something that few people expected, or at least paid attention to... that humans would lose jobs to mechanical labor. Jobs that are not being replaced with alternatives. Robotics has made assembly lines almost exclusively mechanical in some industries, and similar robots are advancing and replacing humans in all industries at an accelerating pace.
There are now robots that walk and can manipulate random objects like switches, door handles, and wheels that open valves. We also have robots that can understand speech and respond with answers that are more correct than those from the most intelligent human beings.
Predictions are that very soon, vehicles will not be driven by people. Semi-truck driver's days are numbered. How far away is the day that shopping carts will return to the store by themselves? Or deliver groceries across town on the sidewalks, after being filled by robot labor?
There seems to be a lot of expectation that these jobs that humans do, being no longer necessary for humans to do, will free people up to "do other things."
Well, just how many other things are worth doing?
In discussing these issues with others, I often get the answer that people will be freed from drudgery to become artists, or playwrights, or weavers, or some other skill that requires talent. I am sure that there will be a flood of people into these occupations as manual labor goes extinct. But what does that mean? How many artists make a living from their work, NOW… before their profession is inundated with those who would compete? I can tell you that making a living in the field of art, any art, is much the same as making a living as a professional basketball player. In other words, very few that make the attempt will see positive results. What happens to the people who can’t produce financial success in an ever more crowded field of endeavor?
Many of the alternatives to labor have issues. How do you feel about sitting on a couch all day playing video games or watching movies… or just chatting constantly with “friends” that you have never met? If you have a hobby where you can vent your pent up energy and creative skills, how do you pay for the tools and materials that are required?
Oddly, at least to my own mind, is that there is a lot of hype about robots running amok and slaughtering the entire human race… but little concern over what will happen to the masses of people replaced by mechanical devices in the labor pool. Which is more likely? That your automatic vacuum will suffocate you in your sleep? Or that your job will be stolen by an industrial appliance?
I’m here to tell you… if you think the job market is stretched thin today, and it is hard to find a well paying job now, just wait another twenty years. The only thing saving us is that the government has created a lot of paperwork for us to manage. I suspect that if we lived with the regulatory climate (paperwork) in the middle of the last century and had the same level of robotic labor that we have today, there would be twenty percent, or more, unemployment. Ten, twenty years from now, those numbers will be greater.
The real issue here is that there are too many people with limited opportunity, and the limiting factor is created by the mechanization of formerly human labor. There are presently experimental uses of robots to pick fruit, a formerly unskilled and low wage employment for hundreds of thousands of people. I already mentioned truck drivers. Even medical procedures and diagnostics may become a threatened industry. The future will prove that many more jobs are threatened than we realize. Those wearing the rose colored glasses are sending their children to get degrees in fields that may not be viable soon and to compete for those positions where they will meet with ever increasing numbers of highly educated unemployed. No wonder there is a cry, recently, for relief from college debt.
At some point in the history of labor, there has been a tipping point. At one time there were jobs created by machinery, but the trend has reversed and there is a diminishing job market. The slide will continue… so what to do?
There has already been some discussion in the higher levels of government about instituting a national wage. In other words, a minimal amount of money to be placed in the hands of people that can no longer find employment.
Well, what are the alternatives? On one side of the aisle this public dole national wage is anathema, to give a living to people who are not producing. And they are rightly concerned that those funds will come from the pockets of wealthy people. Where else could the money come from?
Have you ever considered what is happening to the tax base of our government as jobs are lost? The burden is being placed on the middle class and those in the higher income categories. No wonder corporations are fleeing to foreign shores.
I would be remiss if I were to write this without proposing a solution. So here it is. First, find out where machines increased the necessity for human labor, and then the point where machines started to decrease the need for human labor. Find out where the tipping point occurred, and make that the beginning point where we tax robotic labor that replaces human labor.
From that point on, there should be a value placed on those robots that replace humans, much like we have a value that we use to rate the power in an engine. We say “horsepower” to designate how much labor a machine can do in comparing it to what a horse can do. Why not the same thing with a machine that replaces people?
With that information, the numbers of humans being replaced, tax the machine’s productivity the same way that the human equivalent would be taxed. If a machine produces in an hour what a hundred people would produce, tax that machine at the same rate that those hundred people would be taxed.
I can hear the robot owners screaming already. But this is a win-win for everyone, on several levels. The people who own the machinery are not paying for the costs to employ people, vacations, health insurance, sick days, and under producing workers. The government retains a tax base that it can depend on to fund what is in the interest of the nation. Those losing employment have something that can be used to retrain them, or provide a minimal national wage.
I know, the details are pretty obscure. Perhaps the robots will have to be taxed at a rate that includes the wages lost, less the cost of the robot itself.
The point is that we need to start looking at the future… NOW! We, human beings, have a pretty dismal record of waiting for an emergency before we do anything to alleviate what we know is coming. But we can anticipate where this is going and do something about it. Robots, including very sophisticated Artificial Intelligences are on the way. They will be used to replace us, you, your neighbors, your children, in the labor pool… leaving a void in their wake where those displaced, as well as those who own the technology, will struggle. No one gets out unscathed, unless we are prepared to become realistic in the sociological changes technology will visit upon us.
I’m looking forward to the future, and have all kinds of plans for putting a robot to work. I hope I can afford one.
Sign up to receive the Apocalypse Observer Newsletter in your inbox
www.readmota.com
True emergent sentience, in a mechanical form, is coming to a reality near you. There will be ethical questions to be answered, and eventually moral questions. Some rather early science fiction has provided what we might expect as robots become more integrated into the labor force, replacing human beings. The popular laws first proposed in that venue, are still taken seriously as a method to keep us safe from our mechanical devices, to keep robots from harm to humanity.
Three Laws of Robotics, Isaac AsimovA robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.
Will robots be seen as slaves?Will robots be paid for their labor?Will robots pay tax?Will owners of robots be taxed?
Humans began to be replaced by machines a long time ago. Looms, pottery wheels, spinning wheels, even carts and wagons replaced human labor. We saw these inventions as beneficial back in the days that human labor was cheap, and life spans short. The machines helped to free people to do other things.
Later we replaced human labor with more sophisticated devices. Water and wind mills, sewing machines, metal presses, etc., and still the machines freed people from drudgery in most cases. As technology advanced, machines started to be used to protect human laborers from dangerous occupations. Certainly humans benefited immensely from the advances made in that arena.
Recently we are seeing something that few people expected, or at least paid attention to... that humans would lose jobs to mechanical labor. Jobs that are not being replaced with alternatives. Robotics has made assembly lines almost exclusively mechanical in some industries, and similar robots are advancing and replacing humans in all industries at an accelerating pace.
There are now robots that walk and can manipulate random objects like switches, door handles, and wheels that open valves. We also have robots that can understand speech and respond with answers that are more correct than those from the most intelligent human beings.
Predictions are that very soon, vehicles will not be driven by people. Semi-truck driver's days are numbered. How far away is the day that shopping carts will return to the store by themselves? Or deliver groceries across town on the sidewalks, after being filled by robot labor?
There seems to be a lot of expectation that these jobs that humans do, being no longer necessary for humans to do, will free people up to "do other things."
Well, just how many other things are worth doing?
In discussing these issues with others, I often get the answer that people will be freed from drudgery to become artists, or playwrights, or weavers, or some other skill that requires talent. I am sure that there will be a flood of people into these occupations as manual labor goes extinct. But what does that mean? How many artists make a living from their work, NOW… before their profession is inundated with those who would compete? I can tell you that making a living in the field of art, any art, is much the same as making a living as a professional basketball player. In other words, very few that make the attempt will see positive results. What happens to the people who can’t produce financial success in an ever more crowded field of endeavor?
Many of the alternatives to labor have issues. How do you feel about sitting on a couch all day playing video games or watching movies… or just chatting constantly with “friends” that you have never met? If you have a hobby where you can vent your pent up energy and creative skills, how do you pay for the tools and materials that are required?
Oddly, at least to my own mind, is that there is a lot of hype about robots running amok and slaughtering the entire human race… but little concern over what will happen to the masses of people replaced by mechanical devices in the labor pool. Which is more likely? That your automatic vacuum will suffocate you in your sleep? Or that your job will be stolen by an industrial appliance?
I’m here to tell you… if you think the job market is stretched thin today, and it is hard to find a well paying job now, just wait another twenty years. The only thing saving us is that the government has created a lot of paperwork for us to manage. I suspect that if we lived with the regulatory climate (paperwork) in the middle of the last century and had the same level of robotic labor that we have today, there would be twenty percent, or more, unemployment. Ten, twenty years from now, those numbers will be greater.
The real issue here is that there are too many people with limited opportunity, and the limiting factor is created by the mechanization of formerly human labor. There are presently experimental uses of robots to pick fruit, a formerly unskilled and low wage employment for hundreds of thousands of people. I already mentioned truck drivers. Even medical procedures and diagnostics may become a threatened industry. The future will prove that many more jobs are threatened than we realize. Those wearing the rose colored glasses are sending their children to get degrees in fields that may not be viable soon and to compete for those positions where they will meet with ever increasing numbers of highly educated unemployed. No wonder there is a cry, recently, for relief from college debt.
At some point in the history of labor, there has been a tipping point. At one time there were jobs created by machinery, but the trend has reversed and there is a diminishing job market. The slide will continue… so what to do?
There has already been some discussion in the higher levels of government about instituting a national wage. In other words, a minimal amount of money to be placed in the hands of people that can no longer find employment.
Well, what are the alternatives? On one side of the aisle this public dole national wage is anathema, to give a living to people who are not producing. And they are rightly concerned that those funds will come from the pockets of wealthy people. Where else could the money come from?
Have you ever considered what is happening to the tax base of our government as jobs are lost? The burden is being placed on the middle class and those in the higher income categories. No wonder corporations are fleeing to foreign shores.
I would be remiss if I were to write this without proposing a solution. So here it is. First, find out where machines increased the necessity for human labor, and then the point where machines started to decrease the need for human labor. Find out where the tipping point occurred, and make that the beginning point where we tax robotic labor that replaces human labor.
From that point on, there should be a value placed on those robots that replace humans, much like we have a value that we use to rate the power in an engine. We say “horsepower” to designate how much labor a machine can do in comparing it to what a horse can do. Why not the same thing with a machine that replaces people?
With that information, the numbers of humans being replaced, tax the machine’s productivity the same way that the human equivalent would be taxed. If a machine produces in an hour what a hundred people would produce, tax that machine at the same rate that those hundred people would be taxed.
I can hear the robot owners screaming already. But this is a win-win for everyone, on several levels. The people who own the machinery are not paying for the costs to employ people, vacations, health insurance, sick days, and under producing workers. The government retains a tax base that it can depend on to fund what is in the interest of the nation. Those losing employment have something that can be used to retrain them, or provide a minimal national wage.
I know, the details are pretty obscure. Perhaps the robots will have to be taxed at a rate that includes the wages lost, less the cost of the robot itself.
The point is that we need to start looking at the future… NOW! We, human beings, have a pretty dismal record of waiting for an emergency before we do anything to alleviate what we know is coming. But we can anticipate where this is going and do something about it. Robots, including very sophisticated Artificial Intelligences are on the way. They will be used to replace us, you, your neighbors, your children, in the labor pool… leaving a void in their wake where those displaced, as well as those who own the technology, will struggle. No one gets out unscathed, unless we are prepared to become realistic in the sociological changes technology will visit upon us.
I’m looking forward to the future, and have all kinds of plans for putting a robot to work. I hope I can afford one.
Sign up to receive the Apocalypse Observer Newsletter in your inbox
www.readmota.com
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