Bill Gates Says Some Will Live ‘Like The Amish’ As Technology Replaces Human Workers

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates predicted that some people may choose to live “like the Amish” by limiting their use of artificial intelligence as the technology transforms modern society. 

“We’re going to have real choices. We have had groups — not large groups, but like the Amish — that don’t live at the technology frontier,” Gates said in a recent episode of the Decoder podcast. “A lot of humanity may choose not to live at the technological frontier because of things we get from helping each other or coming up with unique ideas.”

Gates, 70, said AI could eventually perform much of the work humans do, extending beyond white-collar jobs to physical labor.

“If this was just a machine that could work in medicine or just in law or just in education, that alone would be incredibly disruptive,” he said. “But [it will be] every area of human activity — so far it’s white-collar, intellectual work, but fairly soon it will be physical activity and blue-collar work as well, through humanoid robots.”

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“If we don’t choose to massively slow down or stop, then we will have robots that can build houses, grow food, do surgery,” he went on. “And none of the things that human labor provides to the economy will be necessary for most goods and services.”

The billionaire warned that the transition would bring significant upheaval.

“My big concern is this 20-year transition period, where they’ll have winners and losers and a lot of disruption, and we have to get through that in order to get to that period of abundance,” Gates said.

He also called for government regulation of AI, arguing that other regulated industries “are not a millionth as dangerous as AI.” 

“Once you have multiple competitors, the level of responsibility can’t be with the companies. It’s completely obvious,” Gates said. “The responsibility becomes the government’s responsibility, just like it is with every other dangerous product, although the magnitude there and the degree of change is minuscule by comparison.”

The interview comes the same week Microsoft announced a “voluntary exit offer” for which about 60,000 workers, roughly a quarter of its workforce, are eligible, as the company pours money into AI. Gates was CEO of the company until 2000.