Three professions are safe from AI, according to Bill Gates

Concerns about job displacement continue to mount, as OpenAI, Anthropic, and the broader market continue to roll out new models seemingly on the daily. Bill Gates has been relatively vocal about AI's potential to replace humans in most markets and professions. However, according to the Microsoft co-founder, there's a few exceptions.

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Credit: @BillGates

Coding is widely considered one of the first professions on the chopping block due to AI. Major tech leaders, including NVIDIA's Jensen Huang, OpenAI's Sam Altman, and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, have each been insistent that programming will cease to exist when AI reaches a particular stage. However, Gates takes a different stance, explaining that human oversight is essential for identifying and correcting errors, refining algorithms, and helping to improve AI development.

"It's kind of like saying, should you learn to multiply, just because computers are really good at it," Gates told Axios.

He also explains that human biologists will also hold a pivotal role in the realm of biological research and scientific discovery. While artificial intelligence can be utilized to assist with disease diagnosis and DNA analysis, he argues that it lacks the creativity for scientific discoveries.

Finally, energy expertise is the last area Gates claims is immune from automation. Highlighting, that the field has too much inherent complexity to be fully automated.

Gates has highlighted that fields like medical expertise and educational resources will become cheap and readily available due to AI, explaining that the technology would soon replace humans for "most things". The push towards agentic AI - fully autonomous AI models - along with AGI (artificial intelligence) is a key touchpoint around this.

While it's uncertain what markets will look like when AI reaches those stages, all we can do is speculate.