In a nearly decade-old interview with QZ, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates suggested that a robot performing a human's job should be taxed like its fleshy counterpart, arguing this could slow the rapid speed of automation and fund exploration into other kinds of employment. The International Federation of Robotics (IFR) decried the move, instead suggesting further tax on profits to offset the impact of automation. Supporters of similar measures include Anthropic's CEO Dario Amodei, who called for an AI tax proposal to build a multi-million-dollar worker fund, and Andrew Yang, who has called for a tax on automation and AI instead of a tax on humans. Since 2017, the conversation has moved on, with much of the discussion around automation based on software and digital tools like large language models (LLMs) rather than physical embodied AI robotics systems, though the robotics industry is growing fast.