Bill Gates has previously called for a tax on robots to balance the Government's income as jobs are lost to automation. He said the levy could help slow down the pace of change and provide money to hire additional employees in sectors that require people, such as health care. "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," said Gates in February. "If a robot comes in to do the same thing, you'd think that we'd tax the robot at a similar level."

South Korea has introduced what is being called the world's first tax on robots amid fears that machines will replace human workers, leading to mass unemployment.