Robot Social Security? Will “Electronic Persons” Need Employment Benefits?
Like I’ve written for SocialUnderground before, the robots are coming to take our jobs. Now, certainly hiring robots to do the work would have financial benefits for companies. Robots don’t need social security and health care right? Well a new draft plan in the EU would actually require owners to pay robot social security. No, I didn’t get this information from the Onion.
Due to growing automation and high robot turn-over rates throughout Europe, the European Commission has been presented with a motion that would classify robots as “electronic people”. It might sound silly, but in order for companies to conduct business in a profitable manner they’ll have to figure out how to deal with robot problems before they arise. Who pays to fix a robot if it breaks down? If a robot needs to be completely replaced, who covers the disposal or recycling costs? Who pays for malpractice insurance if the robot doctor screws up your surgery?
Under the new draft plan, the owner would be responsible for paying the robot social security tax. But it’s not as cut-and-dry as it sounds. According to Germany’s VDMA which represents giants such as Kuka and Siemens, the proposals are “too complicated and too early.” Makes sense– you’re engineering robots to do human tasks. If something goes wrong, do you blame the engineers? The handlers? The company who contracts robot workers? The robot temp-agency?! Each situation would be pretty unique; at least until we get more accustomed to what a typical robot problem looks like.
But the new plan wouldn’t just determine who pays for robot repairs and insurance. As the draft motion states, “the most sophisticated autonomous robots could be established as having the status of electronic persons with specific rights and obligations”. That’s right, a robot could theoretically have more rights in the workplace than you. As someone who cares a lot about how workers are treated, I think this is something we really need to take a hard look at. But who knows, since this is Europe were talking about, a portion of the tax revenue could go to an unemployment fund or assistance. For real humans. This talk of robot-worker-rights starts to get kind of creepy though when you take into consideration the emerging industry of “robot sex work.”
The motion isn’t expected to pass quite yet– at least in its current form. Writing an entirely new set of tax code isn’t a simple thing to do. Also, engineering companies aren’t too happy with the motion. As Patrick Schwarzkopf, managing director of the VDMA’s robotic and automation department said, “it would be very bureaucratic and would stunt the development of robotics”. So this probably won’t happen until innovation and bureaucracy can find a happy medium– so I’m guessing not soon.
Either way, this whole business of robot social security isn’t going to just disappear. Robots are being incorporated into workplaces all over the world. Even Patrick Schwarzkopf knows legislation like this is inevitable: “we would create a legal framework with electronic persons – that’s something that could happen in 50 years but not in 10 years.” I’m willing to bet it’s closer to 10 years if we see some bigger problems. Like crashing a plane; or maybe post office robot will get violent. Who knows!
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Randi Nord lives in Pontiac, Michigan. She is a journalist for the The Fifth Column, co-founder of Geopolitics Alert, and co-hosts a podcast about geopolitics.