Bill Gates says "AI will replace humans for most things" — Rendering doctors and tutors obsolete within a decade

Bill Gates, co-chairman of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, delivers a keynote speech on the closing day of the Global Solutions Summit in Berlin, Germany, on Tuesday, May 7, 2024.
We can only hope Bill Gates isn't right about everything. (Image credit: Getty Images | Bloomberg)

Over the past few months, Microsoft's co-founder Bill Gates has shared some interesting insights about generative AI, its trajectory, and overall impact on jobs. As you may remember, the philanthropic billionaire claimed that AI will replace humans for most things.

However, he indicated that it'll mostly be up to humans to decide what aspects of life they'd want to preserve for themselves while highlighting that no one would like to watch computers playing baseball. More recently, Gates claimed that only 3 professions will be future-proof in the AI era, including energy experts, biologists, and coders.

While multiple reports suggest that coding has a high affinity to be automated using AI, Bill Gates says humans are essential to the process as they'll help identify and correct errors. As for energy experts, the billionaire claims the sector and industry is too complex to be automated by AI.

During a recent interview on NBC’s “The Tonight Show” in February with comedian Jimmy Falcon, the billionaire claimed that AI would replace doctors and teachers within the next 10 years (via CNBC).

The philanthropic billionaire admits that AI hasn't advanced to an extent that it can replace professionals, further indicating that expertise remains "rare" while speakng about the importance of doctors and teachers in their respective fields.

With AI, over the next decade, that will become free, commonplace — great medical advice, great tutoring.

Microsoft co-founder, Bill Gates

In a separate interview with Harvard University professor Arthur Brooks, Bill Gates indicated that the world is on the verge of a new era called "free intelligence." The new era will make AI-powered tools more accessible, fostering broad adoption across the world.

As such, people will have access to better medicine and faster diagnosis to health complication. Same way, Bill Gates predicts that there will be an influx of AI tutors and virtual assistants rendering doctors and tutors obsolete.

According to Bill Gates:

“It’s very profound and even a little bit scary — because it’s happening very quickly, and there is no upper bound.”

Gates' predictions raise critical concerns about job security for most professionals. It has equally sparked a ragging debate among Windows Central's avid readers. As highlighted by naddy69:

""AI" is not going to take over anything. It will ASSIST some people. It will never "take over" things like doctors, surgeons, dentists, plumbers, electricians, carpenters, auto mechanics AND programming/debugging.

You can't show "AI" 5 lines of code and have it tell you what is wrong. It is perfectly valid, syntactically correct code. But it is not doing what is needed.

For that, you need to know the Big Picture. That only comes with years of experience working with the product in question. You have to know the data structures. You have to know the other modules.

"AI" will never know all of that, for every software product on the planet."

That said, what's your take on AI' claiming jobs from humans? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.

Kevin Okemwa
Contributor

Kevin Okemwa is a seasoned tech journalist based in Nairobi, Kenya with lots of experience covering the latest trends and developments in the industry at Windows Central. With a passion for innovation and a keen eye for detail, he has written for leading publications such as OnMSFT, MakeUseOf, and Windows Report, providing insightful analysis and breaking news on everything revolving around the Microsoft ecosystem. You'll also catch him occasionally contributing at iMore about Apple and AI. While AFK and not busy following the ever-emerging trends in tech, you can find him exploring the world or listening to music.

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