Bill Gates proposes robot tax and Human Reserved jobs to address AI job displacement

Bill Gates has proposed a robot tax and the creation of "Human Reserved" jobs to address the potential displacement of workers by artificial intelligence, outlining his ideas in a lengthy essay published on his Gates Notes blog on August 26, 2026. The Microsoft co-founder argued that the current tax system incentivizes companies to replace human employees with machines and called for policy interventions to manage the transition.

In his essay, Gates highlighted a disparity in how companies are taxed. He noted that when a business hires a person, it pays payroll taxes, but when it purchases a robot or AI system, the cost can often be written off as a business expense. "The tax system nudges you toward replacing people with machines," Gates wrote. He proposed taxing AI tokens and robots to slow the rush to automate and to generate revenue for social safety nets and worker retraining programs. Gates acknowledged that such taxes must be carefully targeted to avoid hindering beneficial AI applications in fields like education and healthcare.

Alongside the tax proposal, Gates introduced the concept of "Human Reserved" jobs, which would be legally protected from automation. He compared...