Tax the robot which steals your job, suggests Bill Gates

How are humans to adjust in a technology-driven world where jobs like cashiers, restaurant cooks, finance secretaries are all taken up robots?

Bill Gates has an answer: make robots pay taxes as a human with that job would.

In an interview with Quartz, the Microsoft founder suggested the radical idea, saying companies who replace their workers with robots should pay a tax which could fund other types of employment.

Gates, who is also a philanthropist and humanitarian, said that the tax money can be used for funding better elderly care and education for special children. “You know, all of those are things where human empathy and understanding are still very, very unique.”

He argues that levying a tax isn’t doesn’t hamper innovation; it ensures the excess labour is taken into account.

So are what the jobs robots are mostly likely to steal from humans? The most obvious and predictable include industrial equipment assembly, finance and cashier jobs, and drivers. The not-so-conventional ones: actors, singers and models!