Bill Gates Calls For 'Human Reserved' Jobs As AI Threatens To Replace Workers

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has called for some jobs to be kept exclusively for humans as artificial intelligence (AI) and robots become increasingly capable of replacing people at work.

In a 6,000-word essay titled The Turbulent AI Era Is Here. The Choices We Make Are Critical, Gates also warned that governments are not prepared for the scale of AI's impact. He compared the idea of protecting certain jobs from automation with nature reserves, where development is deliberately restricted to prevent an unacceptable loss, Guardian reports.

‘Many Jobs Will Disappear Forever’

“Many jobs will disappear forever,” Gates said in his first lengthy piece on AI in three years. “I believe that as AI and robots improve, we’ll set aside certain things for only people to do.”

Gates calls this area “human reserved”. He said the phrase reminded him of nature reserves, places where buildings and roads could be constructed but where people choose not to do so because “the loss would be too great”.

His argument raises an important question as AI becomes more capable: just because a machine can perform a task, does that mean society should allow it to do so? Gates believes there are areas where human involvement has a value that technology cannot replace.

He pointed to the health professionals who cared for his father, who died of Alzheimer's disease six years ago.

“Something in the care they gave my dad was irreplaceably human, no robot could or should have done it,” Gates said. “Imagine a robot giving you the awful news that you have an incurable disease. There’s no technical reason why it couldn’t. Yet it shouldn’t.”

Governments Face A Huge AI Test

Gates also warned that governments are not ready to deal with the changes AI could bring. He described the creation of domestic and international rules for AI as the highest priority.

“The highest priority is a monumental task: creating a domestic and international framework for dealing with AI,” he wrote.

Gates compared the challenge with the US government's reorganisation after the Sept 11 attacks. He said that effort focused largely on national security, while AI would affect a much wider range of areas.

According to Gates, those areas include national security, employment, education, taxation, energy, elections, air and water, public health, the financial system, law enforcement, transportation, public lands and information technology systems.

“It is fair to wonder whether the world’s institutions are up to the task of designing and implementing this new architecture,” he wrote.

The warning underlines how the AI debate is no longer limited to technology companies. If Gates's assessment is right, governments will have to make decisions touching almost every part of public life while the technology itself continues to develop.

US-China Cooperation Will Be Needed

Gates said a global response to AI would require “some cooperation between the US and China”.

His staff are working to arrange a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in November to discuss global efforts to reduce the growing risks posed by AI.

Gates last met Xi three years ago, when he became the first foreign entrepreneur hosted by the Chinese President since the global Covid pandemic.

AI Could Help Students, Or Hold Them Back

Education is another area where Gates sees both promise and danger. While AI could give people powerful new ways to learn, he warned that relying too heavily on it could have the opposite effect.

“Ironically, the same tool that will allow people to learn more than ever could also lead to many people learning less,” Gates wrote.

He cited a preliminary survey suggesting that heavier use of AI was associated with less critical thinking, with a stronger effect among young people.

The concern points to one of the central contradictions surrounding AI: technology that can make knowledge easier to access may also reduce the effort people put into thinking for themselves.

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Essay Comes After Epstein Scrutiny

The essay is one of Gates's first major public interventions since he became embroiled in scrutiny surrounding Jeffrey Epstein.

An external review commissioned by the Gates Foundation found last month that there had been about 30 meetings between Epstein and foundation leaders and staff, including Gates, between 2011 and 2014.

Gates has not been accused of involvement in Epstein's crimes. He remains chair of his $89 billion (£65 billion) charitable foundation and has previously said he regretted “every minute” he spent with Epstein, a convicted sex offender.

Gates's essay ultimately presents AI as more than a technological challenge. His argument is that societies will have to decide not only what AI can do, but what it should be allowed to do, which human roles should be protected and whether governments can build rules quickly enough to manage a technology capable of reshaping work, education and public life.