Bill Gates Revives Robot Tax Idea to Protect Workers Replaced by AI

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has again suggested taxing robots if AI takes over human jobs on a large scale, so displaced workers can still have income security. He said any unit of labor, whether done by a human or a robot, should pay the same federal insurance tax as human workers.

In the US, this tax is taken from wages to fund programs like Social Security and Medicare, and employers pay a matching amount. Gates believes taxing robots that replace human jobs would both protect people financially and keep government revenue stable.

Gates has repeatedly warned that AI and robotics could hit white-collar jobs hard, with blue-collar roles facing the same risk soon. He thinks physical robots lag behind AI systems now, but people underestimate how fast humanoid robots can catch up. A tax on AI tokens could slow the replacement of human labor and raise money for retraining.

Gates first proposed a robot tax in 2017. Nearly a decade later, he says he still strongly supports the idea and sees it as part of a reasonable response to AI's threats.