Bill Gates predicts 20 years of AI turmoil before true abundance
Bill Gates warns artificial intelligence will bring twenty years of heavy job disruption.
The short version
- Telesales, accounting, and blue collar tasks will vanish as robots take over.
- The massive shift could change work as you know it forever.
Bill Gates says artificial intelligence will create true abundance, but the next two decades before it arrives will be as tumultuous a period as there has been in human history, according to Business Insider. My big concern is this 20-year transition period, where they will have winners and losers and a lot of disruption, the Microsoft cofounder and billionaire philanthropist said on the Decoder podcast.
Gates echoed widespread concerns about white-collar jobs, saying that telesales, telesupport, and accounting will disappear as artificial intelligence will be able to do those radically cheaper, faster, and more accurately. As for blue-collar jobs, humanoid robots will take over those, he said.
If we don't choose to massively slow down or stop, then we will have robots that can build houses, grow food, and do surgery, Gates said. He also underscored how jarring it will be for someone like him, whose vast resources have allowed him to lead the charge toward eliminating malaria and tackling other humanitarian crises.
And when the artificial intelligence says to me, No, I am better than you, you go play pickleball and I will get back to you, I am going to take care of this, he said. Gates shared his long-held view that work is vital to giving people a sense of purpose, an income, and a reason to show up every day.
He suggested that art, sports, cooking, and childcare could one day be reserved for humans. Gates also highlighted that measures such as early retirement and caps on working hours could help maintain human employment. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon have both proposed a shorter workweek as a less painful alternative to artificial intelligence-driven unemployment. Elon Musk has predicted a bumpy transition and proposed government checks for all as the best solution.
Photo: Bogdan Hoyaux / European Union, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons, AI-edited
