Why doesn't he pay instead of his robots?

He's still stuck in the capitalist thinking. We keep doing the insane thing of taxing the workforce, the ones who actually produce something, and squeeze them dry but constantly lower taxes and allow tax breaks for corporate profits. Not to talk about banks and their profits based on hot air products like derivatives. As I remember, just an example: JP Morgan, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, Nomura Holdings and Morgan Stanley paid no corporation tax at all in the UK in 2014.
If Mr. Gates would be sincere, he'd advocate the logic thing of taxing profits instead of workers and thus there would be no need for his "tax the robots" idea. But I know, politicians, controlled  by big money, will do exactly that.

nbtrading wrote:Why doesn't he pay instead of his robots?

That is a very good question nbtrading I don’t think Mr. Gates even thought about it.
The numbers sound a bit scary - 80 million U.S. jobs and 15 million U.K. jobs are at risk from automation that is a lot. The governments of the affected countries should be responsible for that and take the required changes.

Greetings,I believe it will not be so easy When a person is working, he is paid either per hour or per contract and pay also related taxes. Would be interesting to see calculation for taxing of different robots

In my opinion he meant that the long-term unemployment which is caused due to automation should be supported in this way by paying taxes.
I do agree with the fact that a lot of people will be put out of work and it might be a good idea such an approach to be implemented.