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Easy. Glowing eyes = robot. Special rule also applies for Tricia Helfer-type robots, that only occasionally and inexplicably glows, and then in a sinister way.

R2-robots are exempt, as they just beeps annoyingly while getting lost.

The thought that you could tax software for the performed labour is new to me, but why not. As the way it is sort-of implied in the text - requiring some sort of mechanical implementation in addition to software, it will probably slow down development of robotics in EU, which is currently the only way we can compete with slave labour^H^H^H^H low-income economies.

> you could tax software for the performed labour

Or you could issue new money and put it in circulation as BHI. That way the money hoarders and robot beneficiaries can't hide their money. Also tax all other values such as properties and shares, so they can't hide the value of their wealth by converting it into something else.

The issue with automation owners is that they want to get money for their products while not hiring people. Thus the cycle of money is broken. Money should circulate like water in nature, not accumulate in some place from where it can't escape. The automation owners should support BHI otherwise who's going to buy their products? They are going to be hit too when demand falls.

If you think from a game theory point of view, the automation owners should accept a loss in order to keep the system working, otherwise they have to take an even bigger loss. But they would prefer other people pay their taxes while they escape (so they lobby for advantages in law), a move based on greed - even though if everyone would do that it would mean they all lose. Similar to the tragedy of commons.

An automation tax will reduce the inequality between owners of capital, who can buy robots, and those who cannot. I think that's a positive thing.

The tax level should strike a balance that makes it worthwhile to automate something but the downsides (inequality) can be counteracted by the tax still.

Ideally, the same applies to tax on gasoline, smoking etc.

I would wage that there's no obvious distinction between an automation tax applied to "robots" and to any computers, industrial or agricultural equipment, automobiles (I'm not paying a horse breeder, or paying people to carry my litter or rickshaw around, am I?), etc. So, would you propose we impose a penalty tax on all machine capable of doing a job that people could also do?

Perhaps. Imagine how much less we'd all have to work and still have enough money to live, if part of our livelihood was payed by robots.

Since I just read that eight men own half of the capital in the world, I tend to agree.

Eight!

You should read again.

OK. I did.

Just 8 men own same wealth as half the world.

EIGHT!

"An automation tax will reduce the inequality between owners of capital, who can buy robots, and those who cannot. "

It's an utterly and completely absurd idea.

There is no such thing as a 'robot automaton' for the most part anyhow.

Do you know Starbucks started using machines to make Capuccinos instead of having the baristas do the full work.

Does that count as a robot?

Does the new accounting software that requires less human input count as a robot?

Do the police traffic cameras count as robots?

What about airlines that used to have 4 crew in the cockpit but now only 2 due to advances in navigation?

Or the specialized 'domain search' tools for professions that save 1/2 their search time and therefore law/medical firms require less staffers?

Or the automated ticketing booths at the Airport?

Or the upgraded baggage handling machine that works twice as fast and requires less humans moving luggage?

Or the advanced comms/radar that means greater safety and 1/2 the air traffic control staff?

Can you imagine the legal hangaring over what constitutes 'automation'? And the lawsuits? And the cost?

This is part of the reason that the EU is in many ways a complete disaster. How utterly stupid.

There's an article today about France trying to recruit startups.

The moment you hire a few people, and use online services to do your taxes, instead of doing them yourself - do you have to 'assess' your workplace as having an 'automation' upgrade and then pay more taxes?

It's fantastically Orwellian.

Of course there would need to be a proper definition, I don't exactly know that too.

Regardless, I do favor automation, just as a I favor to have a more leisurely life. This is possible with automation, but not as the world currently works: automation makes people loose their jobs, without pay. If automated labor were taxed, people can loose their jobs with pay.

Yes, there are difficulties, but I think it's worth looking in to them.

As to the baristas, making the coffee is only a part of the job. Many parts of many jobs will be automated, allowing the humans to focus on what remains and maybe expand/improve that.

> If I can replace an intern with a Python script, does that script start having to pay social security too?

Literally, why would it? It's not (a) part of society nor (b) have needs that might be fulfilled by social security services.

I can't tell if you're in agreement or disagreement with the point I was making. Are we to infer that a robot will, by definition, be a part of society, whereas a Python script obviously isn't? That's the implication of this social security tax on "robots" specifically that the EU draft report is proposing.

Social security is something that we pay into because we get something out of it. What does a robot stand to get from social security?

Seemingly not considered in the report is the incentives created for offshoring -- if you tax robots in the EU, that will just cause the companies to move the administrative robots to nearby countries with reduced robotic rights. Only those robots requiring decision speeds under 100ms or so would need to be kept in country, forming a sort of race to the regulatory bottom.

Also not mentioned are potentially unforeseen implications of deeming a thing to be a person. We've seen in the United States that considering corporations to be persons in some contexts [0] has had significant ramifications.

What might follow from deeming "robots" (whatever they are, exactly) to be electronic persons?

If robots can have liability for damages they cause, does this in turn exempt their owner from liability? Can an electronic person even have an owner? Can the hundred million nanorobot I just stamped out all make political contributions to some preferred candidate (naturally the one most in favor or robot liberation)? Can they vote?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood

When does a collection of hardware running some software become a "robot"? If I can replace an intern with a Python script, does that script start having to pay social security too?

Alternatively, if the description of a job can be expressed as a python script, and still be as robust in practice, what does that say about the job itself? Or about the people who are/were doing that job? How much of the threat of automation is based on realizing that the job one is doing, not just the output, could be commoditized?

I am not too worried about the "threat of automation", since there are literally tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people working in the public sector in my small country alone that could be automated away using twenty year old technology.

But the public sector doesn't care primarily about ROI; they care about keeping their budgets growing every year. Since the public sector also strongly dislikes increased unemployment, nothing happens.

Some sort of automation tax perhaps?

Before machines, horses did the work and I think farmers also needed to pay a tax for their horses (citation needed).

Such a tax should strike such a balance that it's still worth to automate work but also earn enough tax an social security to help the displaced workers.

Interesting. Maybe we'll see an API we'll have to use to submit amount of "work units" our software does for tax purposes, under the penalty of fines or jail time if we fail to comply?

Hm, based on what's reported by our new CPUs with embedded non-resettable "work units" counters for tax purposes? Like gas/water/electricity counters at homes? One side result could be that people would start (over?-)seriously valuing computing efficiency (again?)...

I don't know about software, but for mechanical machines we already have this. It's the gas tax.

http://www.scotlandsplaces.gov.uk/digital-volumes/historical...

> Maybe we could back-date the impact of automation to the invention of the steam engine, perhaps, since this is clearly an ongoing trend and not something that is only starting in 2017.

I believe that the steam engine mainly replaced horses, not people.