Bill Gates says just four jobs will survive AI takeover
Artificial intelligence caused huge job losses in the UK last year, but Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates says four careers will remain safe.
The billionaire, who is a big supporter of artificial intelligence, named coders - who'd have thought the people making AI would make sure it doesn't come for them?! - biologists and energy workers as three professions that will still be required in the age of automation, according to the Economic Times.
Gates is a technology pioneer, as we all well know, so his thoughts on any subject involving computers and code carry a lot of weight.
He did expand his list by one in a later interview, though, adding professional athletes to the limited number of jobs that will still be alive and kicking after robots have taken everything else.
Advert
So at least we'll still have World Cups to watch.
During a separate appearance on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon, Gates said: "You know, like baseball. We won't want to watch computers play baseball."
Harry Kane can rest easy, safe in the knowledge that the robot who kicked that child in China isn't coming for his spot in the England side. Though it might have done better with that chance against Ghana he infamously skied during the World Cup group stage this past summer.
However, when Fallon asked Gates 'will we still need humans?' he offered a chilling answer, replying: "Not for most things - we'll decide.
"So there'll be some things that we reserve for ourselves, but in terms of making things and moving things, and growing food, over time, those will be basically solved problems."
Gates has previously explained why he thinks AI is a force for good.
He told CNN last year: "When you improve productivity, you can make more. If you get less productive, that's bad, but if you get more productive, that's good.
"It means you can free up these people to have smaller class size or have longer vacations or help do more.
"It's not a bad thing. The question is: has it come so fast that you don't have time to adjust to it?"
Well, the current job market suggests we haven't been able to adapt quite yet.
In the United Kingdom, for instance, a study by investment bank Morgan Stanley, per Bloomberg, found that AI had resulted in net job losses last year, down eight percent and the highest rates among leading world economies.
The jobs that are at most risk from AI
In a study produced in 2025, Microsoft listed 40 jobs that are 'most at risk' of being made irrelevant by the rise of AI.
Though senior Microsoft researcher, Kiran Tomlinson, clarified to Sky News that the study 'explores which job categories can productively use AI chatbots, not take away or replace jobs'.
Yet, the jobs with the highest AI overlap are:
- Interpreters and translators (98 percent overlap)
- Historians (91 percent overlap)
- Mathematicians (91 percent overlap)
- Proofreaders (91 percent overlap)
- Automatic machine coders (90 percent overlap)
- Writers and authors (85 percent overlap)
- Statistical assistants (85 percent overlap)
- Sales representatives (84 percent overlap)
- Technical writers (83 percent overlap)
- Journalists (81 percent overlap)
Topics: Bill Gates, AI, Technology, Jobs
Daniel Murphy