San Francisco official wants robots to be taxed – here’s why

Should robots have to pay taxes? A San Francisco official is advocating a statewide tax on companies that use robots for tasks that can be automated and put lower-income workers out of a job, the Associated Press reported.

City supervisor Jane Kim is pushing for the tax policy, saying that the state should act now to prepare for a world where many jobs are lost to automation. Earlier this year, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates made the same suggestion, saying that a tax on robots would slow down the pace of automation and give people time to retrain for new jobs. Theoretically, the funds from the tax would be used for a program to help displaced workers or for some kind of universal basic income.

“We’re five, 10 years from these things all around,” Doc Thompson said on Wednesday’s “The Morning Blaze with Doc Thompson.” Doc, Keith Malinak and Jeffy Fisher discussed the rise of robots and how people will navigate a world where entire industries become automated and self-driving cars are on the streets. They wondered which major cities will be the first to make driving regular cars illegal when the streets are taken over by robots and autonomous vehicles.

In one example of robots taking over, Domino’s and Ford teamed up this year to test a self-driving Ford Fusion that was specially equipped to deliver pizzas. Customers enter a number on a touchpad to get their pizza from the back window.

To see more from Doc, visit his channel on TheBlaze and watch “The Morning Blaze with Doc Thompson” weekdays 6–9 a.m. ET, only on TheBlaze Radio Network.