Bill Gates: "AI to Replace Most Human Jobs... Extreme Upheaval Over the Next 20 Years"

Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft (MS), warned that the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) could bring about the most severe upheaval in human history over the next 20 years. He predicted that society as a whole would undergo major changes as AI surpasses human intellectual abilities and replaces even physical labor.

Reuters-Yonhap

According to the British newspaper The Observer on October 25 (local time), Gates described the emergence of AI in a recent interview as an event comparable to the evolution of humanity. “AI is an evolutionary event,” he said, explaining that it represents a fundamental change like the evolution from apes to humans.

Gates predicted that advances in AI would mean humans were no longer the most intelligent beings on Earth. He said mathematicians would enjoy a golden age with AI’s help for about the next five years, but that within 20 years, AI would surpass humans in fields such as mathematics, biology, and engineering design.

He acknowledged that his own programming skills had already been overtaken by AI. “Late last year, I realized that my coding skills, which I had been passionate about since I was 13, had effectively become useless,” Gates said, explaining that the era in which humans could be the world’s best programmers had passed.

He also expressed concern about AI’s impact on the labor market. Gates predicted that AI would replace people not only in invention and office work, but also in physical labor through humanoid robots. As technological advances reduce the role of humans in most jobs, he said, job losses could become a serious social problem.

On the technology publication The Verge’s podcast “Decoder,” released on October 22, he also warned that AI would ultimately usher in an era of abundance, but that the transition would involve considerable upheaval.

“What worries me most is a 20-year transition period in which there are winners and losers and a lot of upheaval,” Gates said, adding that the changes brought by AI could usher in one of the most turbulent periods in human history.

He predicted that if humanoid robots were deployed in various fields, including home construction, food production, and surgery, human labor would no longer be needed to produce most goods and services.

He also proposed leaving some jobs as uniquely human domains. He said society could decide that people should continue to take charge of areas such as art, sports, cooking, and childcare, even if AI performs better than humans.

Gates also emphasized AI’s potential to bring about abundance. However, he noted that policy preparations to address job losses and social upheaval would be necessary for people to benefit from technological advances.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.