Artificial intelligence is fast becoming an integral part of life and society. Many people have already generated some interesting AI images, videos, and music for pure entertainment’s sake. Others have found ways to incorporate AI into their workflow, using it as a means of fleshing out concepts and ideas. In the next ten years, however, we could see AI starting to do more and more jobs previously only achievable by humans. Bill Gates recently appeared on The Tonight Show and shared his thoughts on the future of AI. He also mentioned that having AI perform most of the mundane and laborious tasks could result in a 2-day workweek.
In the interview, Gates told Jimmy Fallon that he believed that AI would soon replace people working in fields such as education, medicine, and mental health. Gates seems optimistic about the potential of AI to improve our lives, yet is aware of the significant disruption this new technology will initially bring. He believes that AI will possess the same high-level cognitive ability required to perform many of the tasks currently performed by mental health practitioners, teachers, and doctors. Moreover, it will be free and widely available, offering a solution to the shortage of mental health and medical professionals.
For Gates, the upside of AI performing the tasks that require labor is that it will free up our time. This could potentially result in a 2-day workday. While this idea may seem very intriguing, it does make us wonder what role we will play in the workforce. While Gates remains fascinated by how AI could help tackle issues such as climate change and diseases, he does acknowledge that much of what will happen is still uncertain and understands why people feel apprehensive.
Fallon then inquired as to whether humans would even still be needed, to which Gates replied, “Not for most things”. According to Gates, humanity will ultimately decide which jobs will remain performed by humans and which will be delegated to AI. He then cited baseball as an example of a job that is much more fun to watch when performed by humans. However, we can’t all be baseball players at the end of the day, so what about the rest of us? Additionally, many of the roles we thought would always be exclusive to human creativity are already being undertaken by AI, such as art and music production.
