dirtpusher Loc: tulsa oklahoma

Shakey Loc: Traveling again to Norway and other places.

My robot claimed this was fake news. Robots require power and a little maintenance. They don't eat, sleep, take breaks, demand holidays, etc.
How can they pay tax when they don't get paid? Unfair, money grabbing, Luddites at work if true.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Funny, but I can see the point. Workers have traditionally paid part of their salaries as tax. Since robots don't receive a salary, how can they pay taxes? Where will that missing tax revenue come from? If businesses paid the equivalent tax for each robot, it would even out, and they would still save on salaries and benefits.

DaveC1 Loc: South East US

This is the elephant in the room that no US politicians are willing to talk about. I've seen estimates that in 20 years over 50% of all meaningful work will be done by non-human (machines) units. Where does that leave the human population of any industrialized country?

It is a problem that must be addressed one way or another because its coming whether we like it or not.

phlash46 Loc: Westchester County, New York

Yes, it is!

DaveC1 Loc: South East US

This is not a liberal or a conservative issue, its a human issue. Just some of the jobs that in the immediately foreseeable future are gone: call center customer service rep; fast food worker; truck driver; manufacturing laborer; warehouse worker; teacher. All that's required for those jobs is a bit of capital investment, and maybe a very little more R&D. I struggle to think of any job that can't be turned over to an android through the application of AI and robotics.

What are you as a country going to do with all of those unemployed people, "let them eat cake?" 50% chronic unemployment from all levels of society is asking for political unrest.
This is something that we as a society have to get out in front of, and couching it as "money grabbing, Luddites at work" is not helpful.

SalvageDiver Loc: Huntington Beach CA

Just a thought... That one robot replaces one worker. How many people and how long did it take to conceive, design, test, redesign, retest, validate, reliability tests and submit that robot design to production? How many parts from vendors, going thru the same process, were designed into and used in production? Once submitted to production, how many people in the main production were used to build the robots? How many people were used by the vendors to product the parts that were designed into the robot? How many engineers and technicians were used to design the production lines used to manufacture the robots? How many marketing and sales reps to advertise and sell the robots? How many clerks, accountants, and other staffing were needed needed to run the business? How many architects and construction workers were used to design and build the facilities used to manufacture that robot? How many shipping companies employ truck drivers and railroad engineers to move the robots to the customer and who designs and builds those trucks and locomotives? How many tax accountants to manage the interaction with government? And then you have the politicians and lawyers...

What is the salary differences between that worker and the workers necessary to design, produce and deliver that robot.

Skill sets to meet societies requirements are always changing.

I guess my question is, who really benefits by replacing or not replacing that one worker?

dirtpusher Loc: tulsa oklahoma

Well guess design days are almost over. Except for redesigns. Parts are most likely being made by other robots. Lol yeah we know who designed the parts. In the end robots win.

Hal81 Loc: Bucks County, Pa.

My robot clamed he had eight small robots to feed so he paid no tax's at all.

Remus Loc: Norfolk, UK

When robots get full AI they’ll, presumably, have to follow Asimov’s rules for robots designed to prevent robots harming humans. If they do we are doomed. To prevent harm coming to us they’ll lock us up in brick cells (temperature controlled obviously) and feed us nourishing glop through a small glop slot. “Open the cell door Hal”. “I’m sorry Dave, I can’t do that, you may come to harm”.