Bill Gates says a 3-day work week is possible with AI so humans ‘don’t have to work so hard’

Bill Gates appeared on Trevor Noah's What Now? podcast

Asked about the threat of artificial intelligence on comedian Trevor Noah’s What Now? podcast, Bill Gates floated the idea of a world where humans don’t have to work so hard as machines shoulder the burden of daily tasks. Gates said that for over two decades of his life – from the time he was 18 to 40 – he was “mono-maniacal” about building his company. Now, at 68, he has realised the “purpose of life is not just to do jobs”.

“If you eventually get a society where you only have to work three days a week or something, that’s probably OK,” the billionaire founder of Microsoft told Noah on Tuesday.

“The machines can make all the food and the stuff and we don’t have to work as hard.”

Gates has highlighted both the risks and the benefits of AI in his earlier interviews and blog posts. On GatesNotes, he addressed the risks of AI in a post shared back in July, calling them "very real but manageable."

Among the potential risks of AI, he counted “misinformation and deepfakes, security threats, changes to the job market, and the impact on education.”

“This is not the first time a new technology has caused a big shift in the labor market. I don’t think AI’s impact will be as dramatic as the Industrial Revolution, but it certainly will be as big as the introduction of the PC,” he wrote.

"Another thing that’s clear to me is that the future of AI is not as grim as some people think or as rosy as others think. The risks are real, but I am optimistic that they can be managed," he added.