Bill Gates is now worried about AI taking his job

The age of artificial intelligence-powered tools is upon us, and with the impressive capabilities of these tools many are worried about job security - and they would be right to be worried.

With tools such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Microsoft's Copilot, many people around the world are worried about customized AI-powered applications making their positions within companies obsolete, as the company would simply adopt an AI-powered tool to perform all of the work for them. In many of these instances, AI-powered tools would perform the job much more efficiently, without complaints, with no days off, and would cost far less than hiring a human.

For all these reasons and more, people are concerned about the societal impact of AI tools, and it seems that not just the everyday worker is concerned, as Microsoft founder Bill Gates is also worried about being made obsolete. Gates spoke to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman during an episode of the Unconfuse Me with Bill Gates podcast, in which he said that he was initially skeptical about AI and didn't believe it would advance as quickly as it has. More specifically, Gates said he didn't "expect ChatGPT to get so good".

"I get a lot of excitement that, hey, I'm good at working on malaria, and malaria eradication, and getting smart people and applying resources to that," he said. "When the machine says to me, 'Bill, go play pickleball, I've got malaria eradication. You're just a slow thinker,' then it is a philosophically confusing thing," he quipped