My thought exactly. I wonder how many of the "oh-so-concerned" software crowd would react if automatic s/w products were put in to the "robot" category. For example, s/w that automatically orders new inventory displaces a person who could have manually counted existing stocks and placed new orders.

We've had robots displacing human workers ever since Strowger invented the electromechanical stepping switch for telephone exchanges. Before his time a phone operator had to connect every call. Long distance required several operators in several locations. Think of the tremendous amount of employment San Francisco could cause if they simply required all phone calls to be handled with the earlier manual-exchange technology.

Here's the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telepho...

When making a long-distance call it sometimes took hours for the connection to be established. You would ask the operator for service to the remote location, and she would call you back once the call was ready. During the time while you waited you could perhaps shine your shoes or do the laundry, running it through the wringer and then hanging it out to dry. You didn't waste that waiting time. Indeed, you could use it for better composing your thoughts, so that when the call finally was established, you didn't waste precious minutes deciding what to say.

So let's tax robots of all types out of existence, and head straight to the abyss of full employment. We can ALL be telephone operators and horse handlers!

seems to me those in power in kali want to give the state back to the Mexicans as they are doing their best to drive sane people out of the state.

How would a self-aware machine behave? If it is self-aware, then it is no longer a robot. Robot means slave. So our self-aware humanoid (robotoid?) would then register to vote. How would they vote?

It could go further than that. How about Mike the Computer in Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress?

The soft tyranny of low expectations, right?

It is likely that AI will progress to the point that robots will become self aware. Does this mean they can no longer be considered property? If they are considered to be true sapient beings who will pay the tax. This is just another example of politicians failing to think things through.

They will have to fund their BLS, which is their ultimate aim, after all, no one with 2 brain cells to rub together (but a huge her of looter non producers who vote for them) would have raised the WHOLE STATES minimum wager to 15.00. A clear recipe for disaster.

I agree. It will turn into a general tax on return on equity. There's nothing special about a robot. It's just capital invested in equipment that provides goods and services.

This is so ridiculous. Their argument is LITERALLY that technology puts people out of workand that the displaced workers have no capacity or ability to do anything else to sustain themselves. The former has been happening since the wheel made transportation easier, the container made hauling water easier, and fire made getting enough calories to survive easier. The latter is saying people are too dumb to contribute anything of value to society, and they should not be expected to do so.

UGH.

It will be interesting to see how they define Robot for taxing purposes -- does that include a smart phone app?

People will work around the definition. My digital camera can record video (like all of them) but is limited to 29 minutes 59 seconds in one video -- because the EU considers a recorder that can record 30 minutes or more in a different tax bracket.