[Answer] What Would Happen If Robots Replaced the Vast Majority of Workers?

[Answer] What Would Happen If Robots Replaced the Vast Majority of Workers?

I think it was around 2017 that Bill Gates put forward the idea that “industrial robots should pay taxes.” Taken at face value, that conclusion is highly controversial. If business owners invest in industrial robots, then robots, like machine tools and other equipment, are simply means of production. As long as the company pays for electricity and routine maintenance, why should a non-human entity like a robot be taxed at all? To most people, that seems neither reasonable nor justified—almost like turning back the wheel of history. If industrial robots—and by extension, artificial intelligence and other systems that replace human mental and physical labor—were taxed, it would to a large extent hinder normal industry development and constrain technological progress.

But of course, there has to be a “but.” From a longer-term perspective, Gates’s argument expresses more of a concern than a policy proposal. The development of AI and robotics is not simply another version of the labor upheavals of the First Industrial Revolution, where “machines devour people” replaced “sheep devour people” as the defining shift in labor relations. We are always inclined to look to history for analogies, but the advance of human technology has made history an increasingly limited guide. Humanity as a whole is feeling its way across the river by stepping on stones. As Hegel said, “The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.”

Artificial intelligence and industrial robotics do more than function as tools of labor. If, in some respects, they surpass human beings—and at present that seems entirely possible—then they are no longer merely instruments for human use, but potential replacements for humans themselves. And when the vast majority of jobs humans can do—I would say at least more than 90%—are replaced by machines, the goods produced by the small minority who own those means of production will have nowhere to go, because those who have lost their jobs will no longer have purchasing power. Under those conditions, the structure of human society would face an enormous challenge. In that scenario, taxing industrial robots and using the revenue to subsidize the unemployed would be a compromise solution. It would not fundamentally solve the problem, but it could alleviate social tensions to some extent.

So would human beings then become useless, surviving only on limited relief? I think at least several generations would have to suffer through such a transition. Every major social transformation leaves a considerable number of generations in hardship, and not very long ago in history, people in transitional eras often lacked even the most basic guarantees of survival.

After that, humanity would likely turn toward areas where machines are not good enough—assuming those limitations still exist by then. On one hand, there is creative work. It is unlikely that we could rely entirely on machines to make breakthroughs in fundamental science. If we hope to achieve theoretical advances before resource problems threaten our survival, then more people and resources will have to be devoted to that effort. On the other hand, the development of spiritual civilization and philosophical thought could also help raise the level of happiness in human society. In addition, in certain service jobs where machines remain weak, humans could offer personalized services with genuine human warmth.

If 1% of the population, working together with machines, can produce enough to meet the needs of everyone, then the structure of human society will inevitably undergo a fundamental transformation. That is beyond doubt. And given human nature, if basic survival is guaranteed, we will inevitably create new forms of scarcity in order to reconstruct social class.