Bill Gates

Bill Gates (born 1955) co-founded Microsoft in 1975 and led it to dominance of the personal-computer era, then became one of history’s largest philanthropists through the Gates Foundation. Having seen — and shaped — the two prior platform revolutions, his verdict on a new technology carries unusual weight.

“The Age of AI has begun”

Gates delivered that verdict in March 2023 with a seven-page GatesNotes essay. He recounted challenging OpenAI in mid-2022 to make GPT pass an AP Biology exam, expecting the task to take years; it took months, and he called it the most revolutionary demo he had seen since the graphical user interface in 1980. The essay argues AI will reduce global inequities in health and education — the Gates Foundation now funds AI tools for frontline health workers in poor countries — while candidly listing risks: errors, misuse, and labor-market disruption.

He has kept raising the stakes since. In interviews through 2024 and 2025 he predicted that great medical advice and great tutoring, today scarce and expensive, will become free and commonplace — and mused on The Tonight Show that humans will not be needed “for most things” as intelligence itself stops being rare. He has acknowledged the disquiet in that future, including for his own kind of work, while insisting jobs like nursing and teaching will be augmented long before they are replaced.

Gates is not naive about downsides — his essay calls for governments to manage the transition — but his conclusion is unambiguous: AI is the most important advance of his lifetime, and the countries and institutions that embrace it will define the era.