As society we where never prepared for the previous industrial revolutions, this could be the reason for the inequality gaps and poverty in our society. We need to prepare for the 4th industrial revolution. We are witnessing the beginning of the 4th industrial revolution, often referred to as "The Robot Apocalypse". Instead of demonizing and fearing the technology revolution, lets rather plan and prepare or it. Globally an increasing number of companies are adopting an utilizing robotics, artificial intelligence and automation to fast track production.

Economists of all stripes would agree that investment and the application of technology drive economic activity. For decades governments around the world have made strenuous efforts to encourage investment and new technologies. Last year this orthodoxy came under fire from an unexpected source. In an interview with Quartz Bill Gates made the case for taxing robots at the same rate as human workers: "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. If a robot comes in to do the same thing, you'd think that we'd tax the robot at a similar level."

Technological innovation is moving at an ever-accelerating pace, and this comes with vast benefits and inevitable changes to our way of life. One downside is that machine learning and automation are already replacing jobs, and this will increase rapidly. It also has the potential to replace much of that income with Universal Basic Income (UBI), or government cash handouts to all adult citizens, perhaps starting with covering some element of taxes and rising in the range of $100,000/year per citizen within the next 20 years. Proponents of UBI include well-known figures such as Mark Zuckerberg, Richard Branson and Elon Musk. Musk stated last year that he believed job loss would be so severe due to automation that some form of UBI will be necessary to support our society.

When Microsoft co-founder (now billionaire philanthropist) Bill Gates spoke about a robot tax, San Francisco city supervisor Jane Kim heard him -- or, at least, she read about it. Now, Kim has been pushing for a robot tax in the home state of Silicon Valley, and she's been up and about talking to the leaders of the tech industry, various labor groups throughout the state, and to public policy makers figuring out how best to implement a robot tax. But what does it mean to tax robots? For the ordinary worker, the tax one pays the government gets spent on various programs that (ideally) ends up servicing the tax-paying individual -- be it as an infrastructural project, through social services, or even as salary for public servants. Instead, it would benefit the ordinary human worker whose job was taken over by an intelligent machine.

Proposals to tax robots have been debated by serious folks recently. The European Union considered but ultimately rejected the idea of taxing firms that use robots. And last week Quartz published an interview with Bill Gates in which he argues for a robot tax. These proposals follow a spate of recent articles on robots and automation, some of which argue there will be large job losses from robots and automation. These articles include one in the New Yorker, which profiled books by Martin Ford, Jerry Kaplan, Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, and David Autor's article on workplace automation in Journal of Economic Perspectives, among others.

Bill Gates proposes a tax to compensate humans for robots taking their jobs. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said that robots and automated machines that cause a loss in human jobs should be taxed. Gates, the world's richest man and also a strong proponent of AI and automation, believes a robot tax could be used to finance jobs taking care of the elderly or teaching kids in schools. His suggestion is quite similar to a proposal put to the European Parliament to tax robot owners so that workers who lose their jobs to automation can be retrained. That proposal to regulate the rise of robots was rejected by the European Parliament last week by 396 votes to 123.

It's only fair that robots used by companies to improve productivity pay their fair share of taxes, right? This might seem ridiculous, but the European Union is looking to create a set of new laws concerning the rise of robots. According to Forbes, one of the new laws would require robots to pay social security taxes. Naturally, the law can't specifically force a robot who likely works for free to pay taxes. The European Union does, however, want businesses that make use of robots to pay higher taxes based on the rational that a robot replaces a human worker who otherwise would pay taxes into the system.