Bill Gates Warns AI Will Make Many Jobs "Disappear Forever"

Bill Gates has a warning for world leaders: many jobs are going to disappear forever because of artificial intelligence, and governments need to act now — before it's too late to soften the blow.

Gates's New Essay

In a lengthy essay published on his Gates Notes website on August 26, the Microsoft co-founder argued that AI is poised to eliminate large numbers of entry- and mid-level jobs, particularly systems that operate with little or no human oversight. "AI will either be the greatest equalizer ever invented or the worst source of injustice. The challenge is monumental," Gates wrote.

Gates said comparisons between the AI transition and earlier technological shifts, like the move from agricultural work to office jobs, are misleading. That earlier shift happened over several generations and created new jobs that still required human thought. AI, he argued, is different because it can see, listen, speak, reason, and — eventually — perform physical work. "It will hit these industries rapidly, over the course of a decade rather than a few generations," Gates wrote, predicting that law, customer service, medicine, software, and manufacturing will all be affected. "There will be some new jobs, but without the right policies there will be far fewer than exist today."

The "Human Reserved" Proposal

At the center of Gates's plan is an idea he calls "Human Reserved" — designated categories of work that would remain off-limits to automation even when machines become capable of performing them. He compared the concept to nature reserves. "I like the phrase human reserved because it makes me think of nature reserves — places where we could put buildings and roads but we choose not to because the loss would be too great," he wrote.

Gates offered examples of the kinds of roles that might fall under this protection, including childcare, jury service, and delivering difficult medical news. "In health, for example, 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," he wrote. He described education and mental health care as fields that would likely involve a mix — workers protected from replacement, but still allowed to use AI tools to extend what they're able to do. In the most expansive version of his proposal, Gates suggested that as much as 40% of jobs could eventually fall under Human Reserved status.

He acknowledged the idea raises difficult, unresolved questions, including who decides which jobs are protected, what criteria should apply, and how to stop companies from working around the rules. He also noted that different countries might choose to protect different jobs depending on their own workforce needs — one nation might reserve elder care exclusively for humans, for instance, while another with a smaller labor force might allow robots to fill that role instead.

The Robot Tax

Gates also revived a longstanding idea of his: taxing robots and AI systems directly. "I believe we should tax AI tokens and robots," he wrote, arguing that the current tax system creates a built-in incentive to replace human workers with machines, since employers pay payroll taxes on employees but can often deduct robots and AI systems as ordinary business expenses.

A targeted tax, Gates argued, wouldn't stop automation but could modestly slow the shift away from human labor while generating revenue to fund retraining programs and strengthen the social safety net for displaced workers. He called for building new national and international governance frameworks to manage the transition, and specifically called for coordination with China, acknowledging that thorny questions will arise over which countries choose to allow more automation than others.

Gates was careful to note that the companies building AI shouldn't be the ones setting these rules. "It is great that some AI companies are proposing solutions to challenges raised by their own technology, but we should not expect them to lead the charge," he wrote. "Some of the issues are outside their area of expertise, and in a democratic society it's not their role to decide these things." He noted that AI companies including Anthropic and OpenAI have separately called for changes to how AI-related labor and automation are taxed.

Other Concerns Raised

Beyond jobs, Gates used the essay to raise broader worries about AI's effect on society, including its potential to empower bad actors in cybersecurity and its impact on young people's development. He wrote about his own childhood in Seattle, where he said he didn't have many friends outside a small group of similarly introverted boys, reflecting on the "hard work" it took him to develop social skills. "I doubt I would have put in the same work if I had had an AI companion back then," he wrote, expressing concern that highly agreeable AI chatbots could become addictive for young users. He also raised concerns about AI's effects on education, citing early evidence that heavy use could affect students' critical thinking skills.

Gates said he's especially concerned about young people entering the workforce, noting that employment has already declined among young workers in jobs particularly vulnerable to being replaced by generative AI, and that future generations may face a job market with far fewer entry-level positions than exist today.

Industry Pushback

Gates's robot tax proposal has already drawn criticism from parts of the robotics industry. The International Federation of Robotics argued that the idea aims to "solve a problem that does not exist," contending that automation and robotics actually create new jobs by increasing overall productivity rather than eliminating opportunities.

The essay marks one of Gates's first major public statements since he became entangled in scrutiny tied to the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, which also drew attention to the Gates Foundation. Whether his proposals gain traction with lawmakers and other tech leaders remains to be seen, but Gates said he intends to seek meetings with world leaders to discuss potential solutions before job losses from AI become more severe.

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