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.
How AI Will Change Our Working Lives
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.
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Is A 2-Day Workday A Possibility?
Bill Gates was not only expressing his views on which jobs could change, but also how work itself could potentially be revolutionized. If AI were capable of handling the majority of labor-intensive jobs and significantly increased productivity, would we still need to work five days a week? If AI were able to take on the logistics, manufacturing, and administrative tasks usually performed by humans, our physical input would dramatically decrease. This would allow us more time to focus on other aspects of life outside of work.
While a 2-day workweek is by no means in the pipeline, it is one of the potential avenues that an AI workforce would open up. The year 2025 is a particularly meaningful one to Bill Gates. Not only does he celebrate his 70th birthday this year, but it’s also Microsoft’s 50th anniversary. It is also the 25th year anniversary of his charitable organization, the Gates Foundation. It is, therefore, no wonder that he has been reflecting on what the next decade or two might look like.
This is no surprise, considering his input into the world of technology over the previous few decades. Can you imagine a world with Microsoft? Well, one day we will be wondering the same about artificial intelligence. We will look back in wonder at how we ever lived in a time without intelligent robots capable of performing the tedious and often dangerous jobs once performed by humans. But what would life be like without work, without something productive to do every day? Will humans grow lazy or use the time to pursue more worthwhile endeavours? Either way, a 2-day workweek sure sounds good to us!
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