Will robots take away human jobs? Satya Nadella and Elon Musk disagree

Bill Gates says robots should pay an income tax like humans do, reports Tech in Asia

“In a country like India, where there is going to be a services-led economy, there are going to be many, many jobs. There are many things AI [artificial intelligence] will never be able to do… When there is a lot of artificial intelligence, real intelligence will be scarce, real empathy will be scarce, real common sense will be scarce. So, we can have new jobs that are actually predicated on those attributes.” – Satya Nadella

The Microsoft CEO, who is in India this week to promote Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform, made the statement in an interview to the Economic Times. One of Azure’s selling points is its integration with Microsoft’s Cortana Intelligence Suite, giving its cloud clients AI capabilities for personalization and a lot more.

Satya Nadella also spoke about the exciting possibilities of AI in education and healthcare. But his remark on its impact on jobs is particularly interesting in the context of concerns expressed by other tech leaders. 

“What to do about mass unemployment? This is going to be a massive social challenge. There will be fewer and fewer jobs that a robot cannot do better. These are not things that I wish will happen. These are simply things that I think probably will happen.”?- Elon Musk

Microsoft’s co-founder Bill Gates says in a recent interview to Quartz that robots should pay an income tax like humans do. The tax collected from companies that automate jobs earlier performed by humans could be used for training people to do the new jobs that Satya Nadella talks about.

The transition to the new “empathetic” jobs requiring human intelligence that Satya Nadella foresees will be painful. But as Elon Musk says, it’s inevitable and we should prepare for a robotic world that is coming at us faster than we imagine.

This is an excerpt from an article published on TechInAsia. You can read the full story here