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Bill Gates issues stark 20-year warning after revealing the only four jobs AI won't wipe out
The head of Microsoft, Bill Gates, has issued a further warning on how Artificial Intelligence will likely lead to mass unemployment, revealing just the four occupations he believes will survive the imminent AI expansion.
In a recent interview, Gates revealed that while AI will create “true abundance”, the next two decades will be “as tumultuous a period as there’s been in human history.”
Gates's bold new claim comes with '20-year warning'
Discussing the prospect of AI superseding the workforce in the years to come, Gates offered his 20-year warning on the Decoder podcast, having already disclosed which sectors were most under threat.
"My big concern is this 20-year transition period, where they'll have winners and losers and a lot of disruption," he claimed.
The multi-billionaire predicted that white-collar jobs are likely to be the first to take an AI-induced hit, claiming those roles were done “radically cheaper, radically faster, and even more accurately.
"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. And none of the things that human labor provides to the economy will be necessary for most goods and services."
Gates' updated prediction comes after Microsoft revealed it had sacked over 60,000 members of staff due to AI.
Gates audaciously claimed that only coders, biologists, energy workers, and professional athletes would actually survive the uncertain technological takeover that will come with the advancement of AI.
He alleged: "You know, like baseball. We won't want to watch computers play baseball."
When asked if the world will still need humans, chillingly he replied: "Not for most things - we'll decide.
"So there'll be some things that we reserve for ourselves, but in terms of making things and moving things, and growing food, over time, those will be basically solved problems."
The top 10 jobs most at risk from AI:
- Interpreters and translators — 98%
- Historians — 91%
- Mathematicians — 91%
- Proofreaders — 91%
- Automatic machine coders — 90%
- Writers and authors — 85%
- Statistical assistants — 85%
- Sales representatives — 84%
- Technical writers — 83%
- Journalists — 81%
Reassuringly, the percentages indicate how well AI can carry out the demands of each job, per their specifications, instead of simply being competent at the entire role.
Several tech leaders have also issued their own warnings about the impending AI takeover, with Elon Musk predicting the transition between workforce labor and AI will be “bumpy.”
Head of OpenAI, Sam Altman, has warned that while AI may eventually eliminate white-collar jobs, it hasn't replaced as many as initially expected.
Meanwhile, Anthropic head Dario Amodei has claimed that it will "raise the quality of life for everyone," but the "short-term shock will be unprecedented in size."