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Bill Gates said that the long-standing shortage of doctors and teachers may soon be over because AI will fill the gap.
“AI will come in and provide medical IQ, and there won’t be a shortage,” he said on a podcast episode of “People by WTF” published Friday.
Long focused on public health, Gates said that countries like India and those in Africa continue to face a shortage of medical professionals.
The US also has this issue. A report from the Association of American Medical Colleges last year projected that the US would face a physician shortage of up to 86,000 specialists and primary care doctors by 2036.
“The country needs hundreds of thousands of doctors to provide an equal amount of care to everyone, including minorities, those without medical insurance, and people living in rural areas,” Michael Dill, the organization’s director of workforce studies, told Business Insider last year.
The number of doctors who specialize in geriatric care is also dwindling, even as populations age. Medical professionals told BI in March the influx of older patients could lead to a quality-of-care crisis.
To ease burnout in the industry, healthcare-focused AI startups have raised billions by pitching themselves as the fix. Startups like Suki, Zephyr AI, and Tennr say they can lighten workload by automating repetitive tasks like billing and note-taking, improving diagnosis accuracy, and identifying patients for emerging treatments, Business Insider reported in December.
The consulting firm McKinsey estimates that generative AI could boost productivity in healthcare and pharma by up to $370 billion.
Education is headed in the same direction.
In the US, according to federal data released in 2023, 86% of K-12 public schools reported difficulties hiring teachers for the 2023-24 school year. About 45% of public schools said they were understaffed.
In the UK, a London high school is replacing some teachers with AI tools like ChatGPT to help students prep for exams, BI reported last year. The pilot program at David Game College involved 20 students using AI tools for a year in core subjects such as English, math, biology, and computer science.
Despite concerns about students using AI to cheat, educators told BI last year they’re optimistic about generative AI’s potential to save teachers time and improve learning — especially as classrooms become harder to staff.
If AI does the jobs, what’s left for humans?
Gates wasn’t just talking about teachers and doctors. He also said AI was coming for factory workers, construction crews, and hotel cleaners — anyone doing work that required physical skill and time.
“The hands have to be awfully good to do those things. We’ll achieve that,” he said.
Tech giants like Nvidia are betting big on humanoid robots designed to perform manual tasks, from picking items in warehouses to scrubbing floors. These robots aim to reduce labor costs and boost efficiency.
Gates said the world is heading toward a future where work could be drastically reduced — or at least looks very different from now.
“You can retire early, you can work shorter workweeks,” he said. “It’s going to require almost a philosophical rethink about, ‘Okay, how should time be spent?'”
Gates admits he’s also grappling with that question. “It’s hard for those of us — in my case, spending almost 70 years in a world of shortage — even to adjust my mind,” he said.
In 1930, economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that technological advances could eventually reduce the workweek to just 15 hours.
Nearly a century later, despite major productivity leaps, most people still work around 40 hours weekly.
“I don’t have to work,” Gates said. “I choose to work. Because? Because it’s fun.”
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