Romulo Sidauruk

5/5 (3)

We live in a world where people have become more and more connected through with the internet coming up. We started being able to send messages to each other over the internet using e mail, later when the quality of our internet connections improved, we could even play games together, without having to physically be anywhere near each other. It seems that around that time, there was a tipping point, where people also started to become more isolated as a result of new technologies. Nowadays someone could literally stay inside their home forever, work from home, order groceries and utilities from home.

Even though this probably sounds like paradise to people who are very introverted, would it be a good idea to push towards a society where this is embraced? This could for example lead to people no longer seeking their own real experiences, because these can be replaced by virtual reality experiences. Personally, I do think virtual reality innovations are very cool, but I see the point Apple’s CEO Tim Cook is making, when saying that virtual reality technology can make users even more isolated and that augmented reality is a better way to move forward. There are a lot of places where augmented reality could be applied to amplify and support communication of thoughts between people, without losing sight of the “real world” with “real people”.

On the other hand however is Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Around the same time as Tim Cook’s statement about virtual reality technology isolating people, Mark Zuckerberg hosted an event, announcing a new Oculus virtual reality headset. This headset is a standalone product that does not require another piece of hardware, like a smartphone or computer to work. This announcement is a building block towards Facebook’s goal to one day get a billion people into virtual reality. So the CEO of Facebook does not think VR is isolating at all. He says people are being limited by their own reality, and that virtual reality is a way to open up experiences to more people, so it would be freeing, instead of isolating.

What do you think about virtual reality? Is it really isolating and if so, is augmented reality the way to go? Let me know in the comments below!

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-41590323

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-41590202

5/5 (2)

In this day and age, companies have to be at the forefront of technological developments within their industry. This often includes replacing human workers with robots to increase productivity. While this helps companies to stay competitive in their respective markets, it is also decreasing the income of the government: income tax. Because right now, when a worker earns a certain amount of money working, he/she has to pay income tax over the earned money. When this worker gets replaced by a robot, the robot does not pay any tax whatsoever.

This will soon change, if it is up to San Francisco Board of Supervisors member Jane Kim. She is pushing to charge companies taxes on the labour that is being done by robots. According to her, this money can then be used to promote and subsidize schooling for jobs that are currently still hard to automate, such as elementary teachers or caretakers for elderly people, where there is a shortage of workers. She says this is needed to battle the increase in the amount of people being unemployed because their job got automated.

On the other side is the president of the Association of Advancing Automation Jeff Bernstein. He states that the hysteria about job losses is nothing new, and that automation is boosting the economy by making companies more competitive. He says he does not want to dis-incentivize innovation at companies. Next to that, he does not think that the unemployment rate increases as automation increases. He says people will keep defining new jobs that we simply do not know of yet, just like 20 years ago nobody knew about a career as app developer for iPhone, which nowadays is a good paying job.

I agree with Jeff Bernstein’s notion about not wanting to dis-incentivize companies to innovate, but I do not think charging robot tax will dis-incentivize companies to innovate. Even if companies for example have to pay the equivalent of the cumulative income tax of the jobs that are replaced, companies will still decrease their costs by innovating and automating. This means there will still be an incentive to do so.

All in all, I do believe it is a good idea to impose robot tax on companies. Companies will still be innovative to increase efficiency and decrease costs, while the government gets the resources to help the replaced workers transition to different professions. However, I think this is something that should be implemented gradually, to slightly -not abruptly- slow down the economic effects of automation. This also allows the government some time to come up with a plan to use their resources as effective as possible, which is Bill gates said is a big challenge (Quartz, 2017). When a robot tax would be imposed abruptly within any country or region, this would hurt the competitiveness of companies within that country/region compared to companies from outside. This is why the European parliament rejected the idea of imposing a robot tax(Reuters, 2017). What do you think about imposing a robot tax? Please let me know in the comments below!

Gillies, T. (2017). San Francisco official pushes for taxes on robots. CNBC. Retrieved 8 October 2017, from https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/08/san-franciso-official-pushes-for-taxes-on-robots.html

Prodhan, G. (2017). European parliament calls for robot law, rejects robot tax. Reuters. Retrieved 8 October 2017, from
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-robots-lawmaking/european-parliament-calls-for-robot-law-rejects-robot-tax-idUSKBN15V2KM

Delaney, K. J. (2017). The robot that takes your job should pay taxes, says Bill Gates. Quartz Media. Retrieved 8 October 2017, from
The robot that takes your job should pay taxes, says Bill Gates

Virtual reality vs augmented reality

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Should governments start taxing robots?

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