Bill Gates: Before AI Creates "True Abundance," Humanity Will Go Through 20 Years of Turmoil

Bill Gates: Before AI Creates "True Abundance," Humanity Will Go Through 20 Years of Turmoil

Phoenix Tech Download the App | Exclusive Early Access October 26, 2026, 06:40:11 From Beijing Updated October 26, 2026, 06:43:36

Phoenix Tech News, October 26 (Beijing Time) — According to Business Insider, Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates said on the latest episode of the "Decoder" podcast that artificial intelligence will create "true abundance," but that the 20 years before abundance arrives "will be as turbulent a period as any in human history."

Gates said his biggest concern is this 20-year transition period, in which "there will be winners and losers, and a lot of chaos." Echoing widespread concerns about white-collar job losses, he said jobs such as telemarketing, phone customer service, and accounting will disappear because AI can perform these tasks in a "far cheaper, far faster, and even more accurate" way; as for blue-collar jobs, they will be taken over by humanoid robots.

Gates said: "If we don't choose to slow down or stop on a massive scale, then we will have robots that can build houses, grow food, and perform surgery. Everything that human labor provides to the economy will no longer be necessary for most goods and services."

He also stressed that this change is enough to shock even someone like him, with abundant resources and a long record of leading efforts to eradicate malaria and respond to humanitarian crises. "When AI says to me: 'No, I'm better than you, go play pickleball, I'll come back and handle this' — it's a little funny, but it's not funny."

Gates reiterated his long-held view that work is crucial to people: it provides a sense of purpose, income, a reason to show up every day, a channel for building relationships with colleagues, and a path to create and solve problems. He suggested that activities such as art, sports, cooking, and parenting could in the future be reserved for humans to do, "even if AI can do them better." He also mentioned that measures such as early retirement and limiting working hours might help maintain a certain level of human employment.

The report noted that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon have both proposed shortening the workweek as a less painful alternative after AI causes job losses.

Gates is one of the tech leaders warning about AI's impact on employment. Elon Musk predicted the transition will be "bumpy" and proposed that the government send checks to everyone as the best way to cope with AI-induced unemployment. Musk has said that technology will drive production costs so low that everyone can have "anything they want," work will become "optional," and it will not be worth saving for retirement in 10 or 20 years because money will no longer matter.

Anthropic's Dario Amodei has also said that AI is expected to "improve everyone's quality of life," but that "the scale of the short-term shock will be unprecedented."

However, OpenAI's Sam Altman said in May this year that AI has eliminated fewer white-collar jobs than he expected, and that he no longer expects a "job apocalypse."

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