Bill Gates says AI could allow humans to work three days a week

The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence could allow for humans to shrink their workweek to just three days since “machines can make all the food and the stuff,” according to Bill Gates.

“If you eventually get a society where you only have to work three days a week, that’s probably OK,” Gates told Trevor Noah’s “What Now?” podcast on Tuesday.

Gates predicted that there could come a day when people “don’t have to work so hard” just to make ends meet.

His comments were reported by Business Insider.

In March, Gates wrote that the advent of AI could have as big an impact on society as mobile phones and the Internet.

“It will change the way people work, learn, travel, get health care, and communicate with each other,” Gates wrote in a blog post.

“Entire industries will reorient around it. Businesses will distinguish themselves by how well they use it.”

Last month, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon predicted that AI would allow people to work as little as three-and-a-half days a week.

“Your children will live to 100 and not have cancer because of technology and they’ll probably be working three and a half days a week,” the banking executive told Bloomberg.

Analysts at Goldman Sachs have predicted that generative AI could eventually wind up costing 300 million people their jobs.

But Dimon believes that the fear of AI is unfounded.

“People have to take a deep breath, OK?” Dimon added when asked about the prospect of massive job losses.

“Technology has always replaced jobs,” the chief banker said. “[T]echnology’s done unbelievable things for mankind.”

“But planes crash, farmer’s shoes get misused…there are negative,” he said.

Gates has previously touted OpenAI as one of the Silicon Valley companies at the forefront of AI research.

The company was thrown in turmoil after its board fired CEO Sam Altman — only for the company to bring him back five days later after backlash from investors and employees who threatened to quit en masse.

Before Altman’s ouster, several staff researchers sent the board of directors a letter warning of a powerful AI discovery that they said could threaten humanity.

The previously unreported letter and AI algorithm was a catalyst that caused the board to oust Altman, the poster child of generative AI, sources told Reuters.

According to one of the sources, long-time executive Mira Murati mentioned the project, called Q*, to employees on Wednesday and said that a letter was sent to the board prior to this weekend’s events.

The maker of ChatGPT had made progress on Q* (pronounced Q-Star), which some internally believe could be a breakthrough in the startup’s search for superintelligence, also known as artificial general intelligence (AGI), one of the people told Reuters.

OpenAI defines AGI as AI systems that are smarter than humans.

Given vast computing resources, the new model was able to solve certain mathematical problems, the person said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on behalf of the company.

Though only performing math on the level of grade-school students, acing such tests made researchers very optimistic about Q*’s future success, the source said.

With Post Wires