Truth is, automation always has and always will put people out of work. It's just that this time around, even highly skilled jobs may be imperiled. And that has some folks dreading a time in which robots and AI upend the human workforce.

Included among those folks is San Francisco supervisor Jane Kim, who Wednesday launched a campaign called the Jobs of the Future Fund to study a statewide "payroll" tax on job-stealing machines. Proceeds from the tax would bankroll things like job retraining, free community college, or perhaps a universal basic income?countermeasures Kim thinks might make a robotic future more bearable for humans.

Kim got the idea of a robot tax from Bill Gates, who mentioned it in an interview in February. Since then, she's been meeting with stakeholders?unions and business types and the like?about how San Francisco, and California, might explore such a thing.