Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is on a book tour for his recently released memoir, Source Code: My Beginnings. He made a stop on The Tonight Show and shared some of his thoughts on how AI will transform society in the future.
Fallon asked Gates about the pros and cons of AI on Tuesday, and the Microsoft co-founder's answer gave the show host some pause after asking if humans will no longer be needed. Gates went on to explain that humans won't be used for "most things" as AI becomes more incorporated into everyday life.
"Well, we'll decide," Gates said. "You know, like baseball. We won't want to watch computers play baseball. 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."
That answer might have been a bit of a downer for some people, especially with the rising concerns of AI taking away jobs, which is happening already according to one study from last year. Gates did want to emphasize that once AI becomes commonplace, it will solve a variety of issues.
"The era that we're just starting is that intelligence is rare," Gates said. "And with A.I., over the next decade that will become free. Great medical advice, great tutoring. And it's kind of profound because it solves all these specific problems, like we don't have enough doctors or, you know, mental health professionals, but it brings with it kind of so much change."
He also gave some insight into how he thinks work should change.
"You know, what will jobs be like," he asked "Should we, you know, just work like 2 or 3 days a week? I love the way it'll drive innovation forward, but I think it's a little bit unknown. Will we be able to shape it? And so, legitimately, people are like, 'Wow, this is -- this is a bit scary."It's completely new territory.'"
The just over 10-minute interview didn't focus entirely on AI. Fallon spoke to Gates about his beginnings with Microsoft and how people laughed at him for saying there would be a computer on everyone's desk in the future. He also brought up how Steve Jobs said he didn't know about design and should take acid, to which he said that he did take LSD. He went on to explain that when he tripped on acid, it had him thinking about program coding and not design.
Gates stepped down from his role as Microsoft CEO in 2000 and then left the company's board in 2020 to focus more on his philanthropy, but reports claim that he still has an influence within the company. Even though he's not leading Microsoft's push into AI, a blog post of his from 2023 discussed the topic of "AI agents," which he had first written about in his 1995 book, The Road Ahead. The post also clarified that Clippy, the Microsoft Office paperclip assistant, was a bot and not an agent.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had similar opinions as Gates on the future of AI in a recent interview, saying "A future where you're surrounded by robots is for certain."
"Everything that moves will be robotic someday, and it will be soon," Huang said in a recent episode of Cleo Abram's Huge Conversations. "And every car is going to be robotic. Humanoid robots, the technology necessary to make it possible, is just around the corner."
Nvidia is currently the world's top producer of AI chips.
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