The Microsoft co-founder’s 6,000-word essay proposes taxing AI systems and protecting certain roles from automation
Image by European Parliament - Flickr, CC BY 4.0
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates published an urgent 6,000-word essay on Wednesday warning that AI will eliminate jobs permanently and that governments aren’t close to prepared for the disruption ahead. The piece calls for designating certain roles as “human reserved,” occupations that society would choose to protect from automation even where machines could technically perform the work.
“Many jobs will disappear forever,” he wrote in the essay, titled ‘The turbulent AI era is here. The choices we make are critical.’
“I believe that as AI and robots improve, we’ll set aside certain things for only people to do.”
What the ‘human reserved’ concept actually means
Gates compared the proposal to conservation policy.
“I like the phrase human reserved because it makes me think of nature reserves,” he wrote, describing places “where we could put buildings and roads, but we choose not to because the loss would be too great.”
Healthcare is the example he returned to most pointedly. Gates described the team of professionals who cared for his father, who died of Alzheimer’s in 2020.
“Something in the care they gave my dad was irreplaceably human,” he wrote. “No robot could or should have done it.”
He pushed the point further.
“Imagine a robot giving you the awful news that you have an incurable disease,” he wrote. “There’s no technical reason why it couldn’t. Yet it shouldn’t.”
Medicine, law, middle management, and manufacturing are among the sectors Gates expects to face significant disruption within the next decade. Economists have already warned that AI could push up to 10 million Americans out of the workforce as automation spreads well beyond manufacturing into white-collar roles.
Taxing AI to slow workforce displacement
Gates argued for taxing AI compute tokens and robotics in a way that mirrors how payroll taxes already apply to human workers.
“Right now, if you’re an employer and you hire someone, you pay payroll taxes on their earnings,” he wrote. “But if you buy a robot, you can usually write it off right away as a business expense. The tax system nudges you toward replacing people with machines.”
He also flagged the competitive dynamics that could accelerate automation across entire industries regardless of individual employer intent.
“Robots and AI combined can create a vicious cycle,” he wrote. “After one company adopts them and uses the savings to lower its prices, its competitors will feel immense pressure to do the same.”
AI has emerged as the leading driver of U.S. job cuts in 2026, cited in more than 87,700 announced layoffs since January, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, surpassing AI-attributed cuts for the entirety of 2025.
Why governments aren’t ready for AI job losses
Gates outlined three steps he said governments must take: creating new national and international institutions to manage the AI transition, establishing human-reserved positions so machines don’t displace people simply because they can, and reforming the tax system to stop economically rewarding companies for replacing workers.
“We do not have the luxury of moving slowly,” he wrote. “The place to start is with a process for building the right institutions before the disruption forces governments into crisis mode.”
Gates also raised concerns about AI’s effect on critical thinking, citing a preliminary survey linking heavier AI use to reduced analytical ability.
“This would be the worst possible time for humans to lose their critical thinking skills,” he wrote. “In an era of deepfakes and misinformation that can be tailored to you individually, the ability to tell what is true from what is not becomes an essential life skill.”
He said some global coordination, including cooperation between the U.S. and China, will be necessary, and how AI is reshaping workforce strategy and the timeline for HR action is a question Gates’s essay makes newly urgent for every employer navigating the shift.
