Bernie Sanders Proposes Tax On Robots That Take Jobs Away From Workers

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont proposed a new tax on robots Sunday over concerns automation technologies are putting people out of work. Sanders stressed he’s not opposed to technology, but said he wants to make sure that productivity gains are enjoyed by the working class, not just the investor class.

“This is a huge issue. There is a revolution taking place now with artificial intelligence and robotics. Millions of workers are going to lose their jobs—who’s making those decisions, Margaret? Do you hear a debate in Congress? I don’t,” Sanders told journalist Margaret Brennan on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday.

The so-called “robot tax” has been floated in the past by people like Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, or even futurists of the 1980s, but the concept hasn’t been taken very seriously by politicians across the country.

“Guys who sit at the head—often guys—of large multinational corporations are saying ‘Look, we can do this, we can get rid of all these people over here, we can make even more money’, so we’re talking about a transformational moment throughout the world and the United States,” Sanders said.

“I want working people to be involved. And if we come up with the technology—I’m not anti-technology—if there is a technology that can increase worker productivity, who benefits from that? Just the guy who owns the company, or does the worker benefit?” Sanders asked.

Sanders then talked about offering workers shorter work weeks, a promise of the future that was taken very seriously in the 1960s but hasn’t really played out here in the 21st century.

“So if we can reduce the work week, is that a bad thing? It’s a good thing. But I don’t want to see the people on top simply be the only beneficiaries of this revolution in technology,” Sanders continued.

“So you agree with Bill Gates in taxing robots?” Brennan asked.

“That’s one way to do it. Absolutely,” Sanders said.

“He’s a billionaire you do like…” Brennan asked.

“He’s…” Sanders said laughing, “I’ve talked to Bill on a number of occasions, yes.”

TV shows like The Jetsons, which debuted in 1962, promised a future of pushing buttons for just two hours a day, while robots toiled away as servants to humanity. But we haven’t arrived at that future just yet, even as advances in automation are further along than people of the 1960s could even dream.

It’s not clear yet whether there’s any appetite for the kind of proposal Sanders is putting forward, even as artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT and the Bing chatbot attract new headlines, often in distressing ways. For example, Bing’s chatbot has now been limited to just five inquiries per session after multiple journalists reported getting some bizarre responses, including a desire to steal nuclear secrets.

With or without a robot tax, there are plenty of new challenges humanity will have to face in the coming years, thanks to AI. And clamping down on our nuclear secrets should be at the top of the list, given how close we came to nuclear apocalypse time and time again during the first Cold War.