At some point over the last few years, the conversation stopped being "will AI take some jobs?" and became "which jobs is AI not going to take?" This is a subtle but deeply unsettling shift. The robots are not coming; they are already here, they already have your colleague's job, and according to investment bank Morgan Stanley, eight percent of jobs worldwide have already gone.
So when Bill Gates, one of the men most responsible for putting a computer on every desk in the world, warns us that most of us will eventually be replaceable, it is probably worth listening. He did leave four jobs off the list. Probably not yours, though.
AI is here, and the big question on everyone's lips is "whose job is safe?"
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Bill Gates put a computer in every home, so who better to tell people what the future might look like
Gates has been making the rounds on this topic, and the picture he paints is not exactly comforting. Speaking on a podcast with Zerodha's Nikhil Kamath, he explained that his thinking was that most jobs that involve making things, moving things or growing food will, in his view, eventually become "solved problems." Meaning AI and robotics will handle them better than humans can.
But he does carve out some exceptions, and the reasoning behind them is interesting. "We're not going to have robots play cricket," he said. "That's boring. We'll reserve that just for the humans, even if the robots could be way, way better." He also pointed to nurses and psychiatrists as roles that society might choose to keep.
"We might artificially ignore the fact that the machines can substitute for some of that," he said. "It'll really get down to the core of human instinct." He also mentioned coders, biologists, and energy workers as relatively safe bets, though not everyone in the tech world agrees with that last one.
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Gates explained that jobs are a problem that needs to be solved, and basically, only four jobs are safe
The irony of Bill Gates naming coding as one of the safe jobs is that Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, has argued almost the exact opposite. Huang believes we should stop telling kids to learn to code entirely, on the basis that AI is rapidly replacing programming languages with plain human language prompts, effectively making everyone capable of doing what a coder does.
Then there is Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI, who told the Financial Times that white-collar work is around 18 months away from feeling the full impact of AI. Which means the conversation has moved from "will it happen" to "it is basically already happening."
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella took a slightly softer line, suggesting AI should function as an enhancer to existing staff rather than a replacement. "We need to find something useful for AI," he said, which is 10% reassuring and 90% an overly optimistic spin on a very uncomfortable situation.
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He thinks people in biology, energy workers, coders, and athletes are all pretty certain of jobs in the future
While the debate about AI's future impact plays out in podcasts and op-eds, the present is already doing its own talking. Morgan Stanley estimates that AI has already accounted for the loss of 8% of jobs globally. Google laid off hundreds of employees in its platforms and devices unit following voluntary buyout offers earlier in the year, with the company citing a need to become "more nimble."
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Experts say physical labor is the way of the future as well as people who provide a human touch like medical workers and pilots
In January 2023, Alphabet had already cut 12,000 jobs, 6% of its entire global workforce. Meta laid off around 5% of its lowest performers in January while simultaneously fast-tracking the hiring of machine learning engineers, a sentence that tells you everything you need to know about where the money is going.
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Big tech companies have already started with massive layoffs over the last few months, each one saying they are simply trying to streamline their operations
Amazon has cut roles across multiple units, including communications. Apple eliminated around 100 positions in its digital services group. And Microsoft trimmed 650 jobs in its Xbox unit. The companies building the AI are also the companies replacing their staff with it. Make of that what you will.
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Gates said that although machines might be able to take over most jobs soon, we will still choose as a society to go the old-school route
Not everything is doom and gloom, though. Skilled trades are looking remarkably secure right now. Electricians, plumbers, and HVAC technicians can breathe a sigh of relief, as there is already a severe labour shortage in these fields that is only going to get more pronounced as fewer young people train for them. If you know how to fix a boiler, you are probably fine.
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Clinical healthcare similarly relies on physical presence, split-second judgment, and the kind of hands-on care that a machine simply cannot replicate. Mental health professionals are in an equally strong position because the entire foundation of therapy is human empathy and interpersonal trust, two things AI can simulate but cannot genuinely provide.
Judges and commercial pilots remain firmly in the human column, given that ethical accountability and safety-critical emergencies require a person who can actually be held responsible. And at the creative end of the spectrum, the people who will survive are the ones who understand cultural context, taste, and genuine human intent well enough to direct it.
The robots are coming for the spreadsheets. They are considerably less interested in your pipes.
Do you think you have an AI-proof job? Tell us what it is in the comments!
People in the comments helped ease the anxiety a little bit and added tons of other jobs that they think could be immune to the AI revolution
