The robots that take our jobs need to pay taxes

When I was growing up, right-wing politics were centred around the “crisis” of immigrants coming here and taking our jobs. As it turns out, the immigrants helped build a rich and diverse culture with delicious cuisine, eclectic architecture and legendary newsreaders like Lee Lin Chin. Supplementing the nation’s growth with immigration actually benefited the economy with more consumers to buy products, more job creation and more tax dollars for the country.

So now that automation, robots and AI are supplanting our workforce at fibre-optic speeds, where did all those “they’re-taking-our-jobs” people go? I don’t see any bumper stickers on utes saying “STOP THE BOTS!”

It’s almost as if it wasn’t about the jobs at all…

Robotic automation will continue to create income polarisation, which is a fancy term I found when researching this that I don’t quite understand but goes something along the lines of manual labour folk being out of jobs, while university educated people (nerds) will remain employed. But, with AI, both classes of workers are under threat. So in reality the only people who will benefit from the robot worker revolution will be the owners of the technology, and the rest of us will have to live off the grid, bartering with gum nuts and eating possum meat from local parks.

I’m not anti-robot, by the way. I’m actually more than happy for technology to advance to the point where humans don’t need to work. If you like your job, sure. If you’re one of those weirdos who finds their career fulfilling, I wish you all the best. Maybe you derive a sense of purpose from what you contribute to the world – or maybe you just need an excuse to leave the house for a few hours to avoid reading your toddler Hairy Maclary for the 80th time. All I’m saying is that if you had enough money to survive, what would you be doing with your time?

Our fight against machines and AI should not be about whether they replace us or not, it should be about how to regulate it in an equitable way. I just think that if the checkout person is replaced by a self-service machine or customer service is replaced by a chatbot, then the companies need to pay a portion of what they save in wages towards something human-focused, such as community support programs. We should be outraged whenever a human is replaced by a machine, as it leads to a loss in a job and a taxpayer. No wonder Transformers are “Robots in Disguise” — they’ve been hiding from the ATO.

Some savvy politicians (an oxymoron?) need to get ahead of things by legislating said robot tax to pay for a universal basic income that keeps everyone sheltered, fed, clothed and healthy — maybe they could throw in some free movie tickets too, but I don’t want to push it.

“So people are going to be paid to do nothing?” No. They are going to be paid to retire whenever they like and live fulfilling lives outside the current paradigm of commodifying human existence for the pursuit of endless corporate profit. Duh.