Bill Gates proposes a token tax on AI to protect human workers

As anti-AI sentiment continues to spread , one tech industry leader is now floating an idea for how to deal with it.

In a 6,000-word essay posted on his Gates Notes website , billionaire and former Microsoft head Bill Gates explains his fears about artificial intelligence and offers a few proposals for addressing them.

Gates also discussed his concerns in a wide-ranging interview with the New York Times .

One of the most notable ideas Gates proposes is a new tax on AI, which he calls the "token tax." As Gates explains, businesses pay payroll taxes on human employees.

However, if AI replaces a worker's job, that same company gets to write the purchase off as a business expense.

"The tax system nudges you toward replacing people with machines," Gates says, explaining how his previously proposed robot tax would also play a role alongside the AI-specific tax.

SEE ALSO: Bernie Sanders proposes bill to give the public a 50% stake in AI companies Gates says the tax would help slow the impact of AI's growth on labor and that the money it raises could be used for job retraining and building a stronger social safety net.

He also says that the tax could be set up to avoid affecting "purely beneficial uses of AI," which he describes as "making medicine and education cheaper." In addition to the tax, Gates also proposed "Human Reserved" jobs, which would be set aside specifically for human beings.

Gates classified jobs that workers would have difficulty transitioning from as potential Human Reserved employment.

He also proposed that jobs requiring a human touch, such as caregiving, should be Human Reserved.

We might set something aside as Human Reserved for economic reasons.

For example, we may do it because allowing machines to take over a certain role will displace a large number of people who can’t easily change jobs.

You can’t tell a 55-year-old who has worked in construction their whole career that they need to go work at an elder care facility and expect them to find it fulfilling.

Sometimes the decision to make something Human Reserved will be driven by other factors.