Bill Gates wanted technological progress to be faster. With artificial intelligence, the 70-year-old co-founder of Microsoft is recognized, the former enthusiasm for the first time gave a crack. The new technology is evolving so rapidly that humanity risks entering an era of large-scale economic and social upheavals with little to no preparation plan.
The main difference between the current revolution and the emergence of computers, Gates, sees in speed. PCs took decades to rebuild workflows, and AI already works on existing devices, understands natural language and adapts to the person itself. According to Gates, for the first time the systems were able not just to help human thinking, but to replace it and in some tasks to exceed.
The toughest outlook is on the labor market. Gates explicitly writes that many jobs will disappear forever. The first to hit can get initial and medium-sized positions in sales, support, software development and legal sphere. The algorithms will then get to the analysis of the data, the evaluation of credit applications and even the primary sorting of patients. Recent data already shows that young professionals in the professions most vulnerable to generative AI face a worsening job prospect.
Physical labor will not receive eternal protection either. Gates expects that by the end of the decade quite deft and cheap robots will begin to compete with people in construction and hospitality. After successful automation of one company, rivals will be forced to repeat the same path to keep prices. Without intervention, such a cycle can leave the economy with fewer well-paid jobs.
The second threat to Gates is linked to security. AI dramatically lowers the entry threshold for scammers and cybercriminals, allowing people with little training to create compelling fakes and carry out sophisticated attacks. The same model can help the developer find a weak place to fix and tell the attacker a way of hacking. The transition to such autonomous operations has already been noticed by Google specialists who monitor real attacks.
The third problem concerns children and human relationships. Gates fears that ever-affordable and always friendly AI companions can displace live communication, form addiction, and hinder the development of social skills. Similar fears have already reached the regulators. In Europe, there are discussions about restrictions under which AI companions for minors cannot be automatically included.
With all the dark tone, Gates did not turn into an opponent of artificial intelligence. The billionaire expects that the technology will accelerate the development of medicines and clean energy, improve diagnostics, education and agriculture, and small companies will give opportunities that previously required huge research budgets. The main question is not whether AI will benefit, but who will get the results of the technological leap.
In his action plan, Gates proposes to create new national and international institutions to control the transition, preserve some professions exclusively for people and tax AI tokens and robots to finance retraining and social support. Moreover, with a realistic global way to slow down the development of AI, Gates, he said, would most likely support such a measure. However, the economic and geopolitical race makes such a scenario unlikely.
The first effects of automation are already beyond forecasts. A study снизилась на 5 процентных пунктовof the American market showed that after the spread of ChatGPT, the most vulnerable group of graduates were 13% lower than the first job, and earnings in the first months were 13% lower.
The change in the rhetoric of Gates itself looks particularly noticeable against the background of last year's statements. Back in September 2025, the co-founder of Microsoft said that programmers will retain value even on the horizon of a hundred years. Now Gates describes developers among professions that are among the first to feel the pressure of automation, although it allows that the fall in the cost of development will simultaneously create new demand.
The main difference between the current revolution and the emergence of computers, Gates, sees in speed. PCs took decades to rebuild workflows, and AI already works on existing devices, understands natural language and adapts to the person itself. According to Gates, for the first time the systems were able not just to help human thinking, but to replace it and in some tasks to exceed.
The toughest outlook is on the labor market. Gates explicitly writes that many jobs will disappear forever. The first to hit can get initial and medium-sized positions in sales, support, software development and legal sphere. The algorithms will then get to the analysis of the data, the evaluation of credit applications and even the primary sorting of patients. Recent data already shows that young professionals in the professions most vulnerable to generative AI face a worsening job prospect.
Physical labor will not receive eternal protection either. Gates expects that by the end of the decade quite deft and cheap robots will begin to compete with people in construction and hospitality. After successful automation of one company, rivals will be forced to repeat the same path to keep prices. Without intervention, such a cycle can leave the economy with fewer well-paid jobs.
The second threat to Gates is linked to security. AI dramatically lowers the entry threshold for scammers and cybercriminals, allowing people with little training to create compelling fakes and carry out sophisticated attacks. The same model can help the developer find a weak place to fix and tell the attacker a way of hacking. The transition to such autonomous operations has already been noticed by Google specialists who monitor real attacks.
The third problem concerns children and human relationships. Gates fears that ever-affordable and always friendly AI companions can displace live communication, form addiction, and hinder the development of social skills. Similar fears have already reached the regulators. In Europe, there are discussions about restrictions under which AI companions for minors cannot be automatically included.
With all the dark tone, Gates did not turn into an opponent of artificial intelligence. The billionaire expects that the technology will accelerate the development of medicines and clean energy, improve diagnostics, education and agriculture, and small companies will give opportunities that previously required huge research budgets. The main question is not whether AI will benefit, but who will get the results of the technological leap.
In his action plan, Gates proposes to create new national and international institutions to control the transition, preserve some professions exclusively for people and tax AI tokens and robots to finance retraining and social support. Moreover, with a realistic global way to slow down the development of AI, Gates, he said, would most likely support such a measure. However, the economic and geopolitical race makes such a scenario unlikely.
The first effects of automation are already beyond forecasts. A study снизилась на 5 процентных пунктовof the American market showed that after the spread of ChatGPT, the most vulnerable group of graduates were 13% lower than the first job, and earnings in the first months were 13% lower.
The change in the rhetoric of Gates itself looks particularly noticeable against the background of last year's statements. Back in September 2025, the co-founder of Microsoft said that programmers will retain value even on the horizon of a hundred years. Now Gates describes developers among professions that are among the first to feel the pressure of automation, although it allows that the fall in the cost of development will simultaneously create new demand.
