蓋茨:機器人也應繳所得稅

Robots have at least one unfair advantage over human workers: they do not pay income tax.

與人類勞動者相比，機器人至少有一個不公平的優勢：不用繳所得稅。

Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft and the world’s richest man, thinks that should change. It is an idea that until now has been associated more with European socialists than tech industry leaders, and puts him in the unusual position of explicitly arguing for taxes to slow the adoption of new technology.

微軟(Microsoft)聯合創始人、世界首富比爾?蓋茨(Bill Gates)認爲，這一點應該改變。到目前爲止，支持這種想法的更多是歐洲的社會主義者，而不是科技行業的領袖。這也體現了蓋茨不同尋常的立場：明確支持通過徵稅來延緩新技術的應用。

Mr Gates made his fortune from the spread of PCs, which helped to erase whole categories of workers, from typists to travel agents. But, speaking in an interview with Quartz, he argued that it may be time to deliberately slow the advance of the next job-killing technologies.

蓋茨從個人電腦(PC)的普及中發家，電腦普及是導致從打字員到旅行代理商等許多行業消失的因素之一。但他在接受Quartz採訪時提出，當前或許應該有意地延緩下一批奪走工作崗位的技術的進步。

“It is really bad if people overall have more fear about what innovation is going to do than they have enthusiasm,” he said. “That means they won’t shape it for the positive things it can do. And, you know, taxation is certainly a better way to handle it than just banning some elements of it.”

“如果人們對創新所帶來的結果的恐懼總體上超過了他們對創新的熱情，這真的很糟糕，”他說，“這意味着他們不會從積極的方面去塑造創新。而且，你知道，跟禁止創新的某些方面相比，徵稅當然是解決問題的更好辦法。”

The idea of using taxes to support people put out of work by automation has been catching on in the tech world, but Mr Gates went further, pushing for a direct levy on robots that would match what human workers pay.

利用稅收來支持因自動化普及而失業的人們的想法，在科技界變得越來越流行，但蓋茨更進一步，呼籲對機器人直接徵收與人類工人水平相當的稅金。

“Right now, the human worker who does, say, $50,000 worth of work in a factory, that income is taxed and you get income tax, social security tax, all those things,” he said. “If a robot comes in to do the same thing, you’d think that we’d tax the robot at a similar level.”

“現在，人類工人在工廠裏工作，他創造了比如說5萬美元的價值，這筆收入會被徵稅，要繳所得稅、社會保障稅等等，”他說，“如果一個機器人來做同樣的工作，你會認爲我們應該對機器人徵收同樣水平的稅金。”

The extra money should be used to retrain people the robots have replaced, Mr Gates said, with “communities where this has a particularly big impact” first in line for support.

蓋茨表示，針對機器人徵收的稅款應該用於對被機器人取代的人進行再培訓，“受到特別大影響的羣體”應該首先獲得支持。

Some politicans have also joined the fray. Beno?t Hamon, France’s Socialist candidate in this year’s presidential elections, has called for a tax on robots to fund a minimum income for all.

一些政治家也加入了這場爭論。今年法國總統選舉的社會黨候選人伯努瓦?阿蒙(Beno?t Hamon)呼籲對機器人徵稅，以便爲所有人提供最低收入。

Some tech leaders have hinted that the tech companies’ customers — rather than the industry itself — should foot a higher tax bill. In a recent interview with the Financial Times, Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s current chief executive, said: “Whenever somebody cuts cost, that means, hopefully, a surplus is getting created. You can always tax surplus.”

一些科技企業領袖暗示，科技公司的客戶——而不是行業本身——應該支付更高的稅金。最近，微軟首席執行官薩蒂亞?納德拉(Satya Nadella)在接受《金融時報》採訪時表示：“每當有人削減成本，就意味着有希望創造盈餘。你總可以對盈餘徵稅。”

Mr Gates echoed that suggestion, though he also struck a more radical stance with his levy on the machines’ producers. “I don’t think the robot companies are going to be outraged that there might be a tax,” he said. “It’s OK.”

蓋茨呼應了這一說法，而且提出了對機器人制造商徵稅的更激進立場。“我認爲，機器人公司不會對可能被徵稅感到憤怒，”他說，“這沒什麼。”