Bill Gates wants to keep some jobs off-limits to AI
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Bill Gates says governments may eventually need to do something that runs counter to centuries of technological progress: deliberately stop machines from replacing people in some jobs.
Why it matters: Gates expects AI to eventually outperform humans at such a wide range of work that simply retraining displaced employees won't be enough.
State of play: In his new essay on the impact of AI, Gates proposes the notion of "Human Reserved" jobs: occupations or tasks that society chooses to leave to people even when AI or robots could perform them.
- Gates says the idea is loosely analogous to nature reserves where societies could develop certain lands, but choose not to because doing so would destroy something worth preserving.
Zoom in: In an interview with Axios, Gates floated childcare and jury service as among the types of things humans are clearly better suited for, but said there should be room for humans even in areas where AI also has a role to play.
- In education and health care, Gates said, "you wouldn't want to completely ban" AI. Instead, a profession might be protected while workers use AI to improve their output.
Zoom out: Gates thinks Human Reserved could come in two forms.
- "One is forever this job is done by humans," he said.
- The other would be temporary protection for workers who realistically can't pivot into entirely different careers — for example, manufacturing workers nearing the latter part of their careers.
- Gates similarly suggests that society might phase AI into some occupations over years or decades rather than allow immediate replacement.
Between the lines: In the essay Gates also recommends taxing AI tokens and robots to lessen the economic incentives that companies currently have to automate human work.
- "The tax system nudges you toward replacing people with machines," he writes.
- An alternative to that, Gates tells Axios, is no small undertaking.
- "I'm talking about a change to the tax system that's greater than any in my lifetime. At a time when politics is more polarized than any time in my lifetime."
Yes, but: The notion of "Human Reserved" jobs creates enormous practical questions: Which jobs qualify? Who decides? What stops companies from cheating? And how does a country protect domestic jobs if foreign competitors automate them?
The big picture: Gates said he has been trying to calculate how much employment could plausibly be preserved this way.
- "In a very extreme form of it," Gates told Axios he could imagine 40% of jobs could initially be reserved for humans. "But that's as high as I can get."
- And even reaching that number proved harder than he thought it would.
The bottom line: Gates expects AI will destroy a lot of jobs.
- "I'd love to be convinced that I'm wrong about the job market, but I'm not," he said, saying he would stake his reputation that "this will be very bad for the job market."
Go deeper: Gates confronts the Epstein questions hanging over his AI push
