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WriterCommunications professional with a decade of experience as a copywriter, proofreader, and editor. As a travel and science journalist, I've collaborated with several print and digital outlets around the world. I'm passionate about culture, music, food, history, and innovative technologies.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has been at the forefront of technology long enough to recognize when disruptive changes are coming. The rise of AI developments is one of those changes.
In an interview promoting his new book, Source Code: My Beginnings, Gates said AI systems of the future will eliminate the need for human intervention in tasks such as disease diagnosis and education.
It Won’t Happen Immediately, but It Will Happen
Gates has shared his vision for AI’s development in multiple interviews, including a recent one on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
During the interview, he recalled a moment when Apple co-founder Steve Jobs once told him he should have taken LSD to improve his products. He also stated that AI systems will impact people’s lives so significantly that humans “won’t be needed for most things.”
While that statement may sound dystopian and alarming, Gates emphasized that the key is how we use AI developments to improve our lives rather than fearing it—something he previously discussed in a personal blog post.
Acknowledging that AI development remains “rare and very expensive,” Gates pointed to fields such as medicine and education, where human specialists are still essential.
“With AI, over the next decade, that will become free and commonplace. It’s kind of profound because it solves all these specific problems, like we don’t have enough doctors or mental health professionals. But it brings with it kind of so much change,” Gates said. He previewed this idea in a 2023 interview with Sal Khan, founder of the Khan Academy, for the podcast Unconfuse Me.
Gates added that some activities, such as playing or watching baseball and football, will likely remain human-driven. However, he told Fallon that AI systems will take over tasks they can perform more efficiently than humans, causing people to move away from those roles.
AGI Will Be the Great Transformational Leap
In an interview with Harvard business professor Arthur Brooks, Gates highlighted how AI development can expand human capabilities in education, healthcare, and the workforce.
He believes these advancements will accelerate technological progress, making AI tools more accessible and affordable. “It’s very profound and even a little bit scary—because it’s happening very quickly, and there is no upper bound,” Gates told Brooks.
Gates expects AI agents to change how users interact with AI developments by becoming specialists in specific tasks. He discussed this in an episode of his podcast Possible, speaking with Aria Finger and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman.
For example, a properly trained AI agent could help students and workers develop skills faster through personalized learning tools.
However, Gates believes today’s AI developments are just a stepping stone. The next big leap, he says, is artificial general intelligence (AGI), which will function more like human intelligence.
Microsoft’s AI executive director Mustafa Suleyman—whom Gates considers one of the most forward-thinking voices in the field—shares this view. Suleyman predicts that today’s AI systems and AI agents are merely interim steps toward the major shift AGI will bring.
“These tools will only temporarily augment human intelligence. They will make us smarter and more efficient for a time, and will unlock enormous amounts of economic growth, but they are fundamentally labor replacing,” Suleyman wrote in The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century's Greatest Dilemma.
Gates echoed this sentiment in his interview with Fallon, stating, “There will be some things we reserve for ourselves. But in terms of making things, moving things, and growing food, over time, those will be basically solved problems.”
Image | OnInnovation
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