Robot tax debate: No, bots aren't the answer to our talent shortage

Bill Gates answer to this problem is to tax the bots as well, reports Tech in Asia

Is there really a global talent shortage? Your opinion might depend on your location and your company’s hiring needs—or does it? Is your company dependent on highly skilled tech or business development professionals? Maybe you’re always searching for the best creatives or marketing experts? Let me ask you this, does your pipeline have an unlimited supply of motivated professionals that meet all of your job requirements? No? I thought so.

If talent is so difficult to find and bots are going to start taking on new jobs, could they be the answer to our talent shortage? Could your next hard-to-find unicorn employee be a bot?  I know, sounds crazy, right? But a recent article in Tech Times had a dread-inducing headline: “Bots Stealing Human Jobs.” Before you say, “Well that won’t be my job,” think again. More things are becoming automated. And who knows what will happen in the future? AI might be able to replace you—just look at Siri or Amazon Echo.

Some live in fear of this future. Bill Gates, however, doesn’t. He has a simple answer for those in fear of it: If you use bots to replace humans, tax the bot as you would a human, then use that money to pay for human training for jobs bots can’t do. So while this may be the future—and the future is always uncertain—what is happening right now with labor?

Skills shortage

Try typing the words “labor shortages” in Google and see what comes up. The three suggestions after you type those words are in this order:

• At all skill levels

• in US

• Canada

Interesting. Even Google knows there’s a skills shortage AT ALL LEVELS. But let’s not just trust our Google search. This has been a universal topic in all developed countries for some time. The aging populations in Europe, Japan, the US, and even China are leading to a shrinking labour force.

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This is an excerpt of the article published on Tech In Asia. You can read the full article here.