Billionaire Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is calling for “human-reserved” jobs in certain industries in order to prevent artificial intelligence from replacing real people. In a 6,000-word essay, Gates emphasized that the world’s governments are not prepared for the impact AI will have in the future.
Billionaire Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates recently published a 6,000-word essay in which he expressed major concern over artificial intelligence and how unprepared the world’s governments are regarding how much the technology will impact us in the future.
One of the biggest things he also wanted to emphasize is how we need to start creating/solidifying “human-reserved” jobs to prevent AI from replacing real people in certain industries.
In “The turbulent AI era is here. The choices we make are critical,” Gates compared the need to reserve roles for human beings over AI to the ways in which nature reserves protect the environment.
“Many jobs will disappear forever. I believe that as AI and robots improve, we’ll set aside certain things for only people to do.”
“I’ve started calling this domain human reserved. I like the phrase ‘human reserve’ 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.”
One of the industries he emphasized needs human-to-human interaction is healthcare spaces, pointing out how the staff who took care of his father before he passed away from Alzheimer’s gave him the best care imaginable.
“Something in the care they gave my dad was irreplaceably human, no robot could or should have done it. 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 said.
“AI will take on work in law, customer service, medicine, software, and manufacturing. It will hit these industries rapidly, over the course of a decade rather than a few generations. There will be some new jobs, but without the right policies there will be far fewer than exist today.”
Gates also acknowledged his bias as a billionaire of one of the world’s biggest technology companies in the essay.
“I want to acknowledge a potential bias. I have benefited enormously from the technology industry. Although I have diversified my portfolio quite a bit, I still have financial ties to it.
I am working with Microsoft and other AI companies in my role as chairman of the Gates Foundation to try and ensure AI is deployed in ways that will truly benefit people around the world.
However, my views on AI are not motivated by the potential to make money for myself. Any profits generated by my investments, including those related to technology, will go to the Gates Foundation to tackle global inequity. Of course, readers will have to decide for themselves whether this clouds my view.”
One of the biggest points was how much he believes the leaders of the world are unprepared for how quickly this technology will advance, as we’ve already seen a rapid advancement in the past few years alone.
“If someone had a credible plan for slowing down AI advances globally, I would likely support it. However, I don’t think that’s going to happen. The geopolitical and economic incentives are pushing too hard to go full speed ahead.
To make sure we maximize the positive effects of this unprecedented technology and minimize the bad so we are better off overall, we need to understand both the benefits and the risks. I’ll start with the risks,” he wrote.
“The highest priority is a monumental task: creating a domestic and international framework for dealing with AI,” he wrote.
“After the attacks of 9/11 the US government went through its biggest reorganization since World War II for the purpose of improving just one function, national security.
AI will require much, much more. It will affect national security as well as employment, education, taxation, energy, elections, air and water, public health, the financial system, law enforcement, transportation, public lands and IT systems.
It is fair to wonder whether the world’s institutions are up to the task of designing and implementing this new architecture.”
While Gates fully laid out all of the risks of AI, he knows it’s not going anywhere, so solid policies and regulations need to be put in place, where humans focus on the good it can do, rather than the negatives.
“It’s often said that we overestimate how much will change in the short term and underestimate how much will change in the long term.
With AI, I see something different going on. Some people see only the upside of AI and do not focus enough on the negatives. Others make the opposite mistake, which is to focus exclusively on the dangers—which are real—at the cost of missing the potential benefits,” he wrote.
“We need both: deep concern about the AI harms we need to minimize, and grounded optimism about the positives if we maximize them for everyone.”
Gates wants the world to be collaborative when it comes to AI, in fact, his staff are currently working on setting up a meeting with China’s president, Xi Jinping, as Gates believes “some cooperation between the US and China will be required.” The specific meeting he’s trying to get set up is to discuss the global efforts that can help mitigate the growing risks of AI.
He does believe that this technology can, and should, be used for its benefits.
“Maximizing the benefits is just as important as minimizing the harms. If people see how AI makes their lives easier, it will help build the public trust that is necessary for managing the harder parts of the transition,” he wrote.
“If the first thing AI does in most people’s lives is take away their job, those who are already skeptical about it will outright reject it.
This will make it harder to ever deliver on the benefits and it is another reason why governments, industries including the medical industry, and AI companies should be working together now.
With its ability to synthesize knowledge from every scientific field, AI can accelerate innovation in the world’s toughest technical challenges: providing reliable clean energy for everyone, combating climate change, growing enough food, eradicating diseases, and more.”
While Gates did point out how healthcare workers are essential, and human-to-human connection is an integral part of the industry, using AI to help advance medicine is a different story.
“Researchers working on cancer treatments or nuclear energy can use AI to search through massive amounts of scientific literature. It can help them identify patterns that a human might miss and decide which experiments offer the most promise.
When intelligence is no longer the limiting factor that it is today, smaller companies will be able to compete with organizations that have far larger research budgets. R&D and innovation will be supercharged.
Healthcare is one area where AI can help solve real-world problems. Many small American hospitals lack on-site specialists who can quickly diagnose a patient during a life-threatening emergency.
In those places, AI could make sure a heart attack is caught in time and a family avoids the crushing expense of a medical emergency. Viz.ai is one example. It analyzes scans to detect strokes and other emergencies and helps medical teams coordinate their patients’ care. It is being used in nearly 2,000 U.S. hospitals,” Gates wrote.
Eric Mastrota is a Contributing Editor at The National Digest based in New York. A graduate of SUNY New Paltz, he reports on world news, culture, and lifestyle. You can reach him at eric.mastrota@thenationaldigest.com.
