Bill Gates posted a lengthy essay on his Gates Notes site today, showing how much the Microsoft co-founder thinks about the social impact of AI.
Gates is largely in the “responsible AI” camp, and has argued that Pacing the Frontier, an open letter published by AI workers urging AI to slow down, is a good idea, but he has expressed skepticism about whether it is sustainable.
He also expressed excitement about the benefits of AI for science and medicine, but was concerned about its impact on labor. This is all very familiar material for anyone who follows Anthropic’s policy work.
But there were some truly new ideas that could change the conversation if implemented. First, he proposes a “robot tax.”
Currently, when you are an employer and hire someone, you pay payroll taxes on that person’s income. However, if you purchase a robot, you can usually record it as an expense right away. Taxation encourages the replacement of humans with machines.
Taxes could slow the transition of humans out of the labor force a little, and finance retraining and stronger safety nets.
He also suggests setting aside certain jobs “for humans only,” essentially banning the use of AI for certain tasks. This is an interesting idea and would be easy for policymakers to implement.
For economic reasons, you might set something aside as a human reservation. For example, we might do so because having machines take over certain roles could displace many people who cannot easily change jobs. You can’t tell a 55-year-old who has worked in the construction industry his entire career to work in a senior living facility and expect it to be rewarding.
The decision to create a human reservation may be determined by other factors. For example, in the health field, imagine a robot telling you that you have an incurable disease. There’s no technical reason why it can’t be done. But you shouldn’t.
The areas that humans reserve evolve over time. For example, you should consider phasing in AI slowly over years or decades, with a commitment to securing some jobs now and keeping some jobs.
It should also be noted that both ideas could significantly hurt the profits of major laboratories. That may be why we haven’t heard much about this idea until now.
Additionally, there are still many unanswered questions about who exactly will set these rules and what exactly they will include if they are introduced.
