Bill Gates: new taxes on robots to fight poverty

The founder of Microsoft launches a suggestive idea: introduce new taxes on the use of robots to pay for pro-poverty measures

It has been debated for several years now on the use of robots in the world of work. The robotized machines allow the companies to speed up the productive process and at the same time to reduce the production costs.

All at the expense of the workers who are replaced by the machines that never go on vacation and do not ask for a salary increase. If up to today the problem is still manageable, in the next years the automation will make lose millions of jobs all over the world. Unemployed people who are unlikely to be relocated unless we start now to find a solution. Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft and the richest man in the world, has also expressed his thoughts on the subject, proposing to establish new taxes that will finance a common fund to be used to fight poverty.

In an interview with Quartz, Bill Gates calls on governments around the world to quickly find a solution to be able to stem the problem of unemployment and poverty. The use of robots in the production process will put in serious difficulty the financial systems of the main industrial nations, with an increasing number of people being ousted from the world of work. For this reason, the president of Microsoft proposes the establishment of a safeguard fund financed by new taxes to be paid directly to companies that use robots. The money would go to fund activities where the use of artificial intelligence is not required: education or care for the elderly. Bill Gates calls on governments to hurry up: the foundations on which the system has stood until now are about to collapse due to the continuous automation of the world of work and it is necessary to find a solution that truly fights poverty.