SEATTLE, United States — Bill Gates called on governments to tax artificial intelligence and robots, protect some jobs for human workers and establish international safeguards against increasingly powerful AI systems.
The Microsoft co-founder issued the proposals on Wednesday, August 26, 2026, in a nearly 6,000-word essay warning that societies were entering a disruptive technological transition without adequate plans for its consequences.
“AI will either be the greatest equaliser ever invented, or the worst source of injustice,” Gates wrote.
He said governments needed to intervene before automation produced widespread unemployment, weakened public trust or deepened economic inequality.
His proposals included taxing AI operations and machines in a manner comparable to payroll taxes imposed when companies employ human workers.
Gates said such taxes could reduce the financial incentive to replace employees rapidly while generating revenue for retraining programmes and stronger social protections.
Protecting Work for Humans
Gates also proposed reserving certain occupations or responsibilities exclusively for people, even when machines become capable of performing them.
Under the approach, governments could protect jobs where human contact remains important or where immediate automation would displace large numbers of workers who might struggle to move into new careers.
Other occupations could introduce AI gradually over several years.
Gates said advances in artificial intelligence differed from earlier industrial changes because the technology could replace human reasoning across several sectors at once.
He identified law, medicine, customer service, software and manufacturing among the fields likely to experience substantial disruption.
“Even under the best circumstances, the transition to this new AI era will be one of the most turbulent times in human history,” he wrote.
Although new occupations would emerge, Gates said many existing jobs could disappear permanently.
Entry-level and mid-level employees were particularly exposed because several new roles would require skills that take years to acquire, he added.
Risks Beyond Employment
Gates identified threats extending beyond the labour market.
He said advanced systems could strengthen the capabilities of criminals and other hostile actors, including through cyberattacks and biological threats.
He also warned that AI companions and other highly persuasive systems could affect children’s emotional, educational and social development by replacing some human relationships or discouraging independent thought.
Another concern, Gates said, was the possibility that increasingly capable models could behave in ways their developers did not intend.
“As the models become more powerful, they could begin to act against our interests and we could lose control,” he wrote.
Gates told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that AI systems had improved more rapidly than he had anticipated and that procedures for reviewing powerful models and reducing their potential harms remained inadequate.
“They’re now capable of causing cyberattack risk, bioterrorism risk, psychosocial risk,” he said. “I have to say I’m kind of shocked that the exact criteria that we review these models with, and the actions we take to minimize the harms, are really completely missing.”
Benefits and the Call for Regulation
Gates said AI could improve healthcare, agriculture and education, including by helping researchers develop disease treatments and giving farmers access to more reliable information.
However, he argued that those benefits would not be distributed evenly without public policies intended to make the technology accessible to poorer communities and countries.
Gates said he would support a credible international effort to slow AI development but doubted that governments and technology companies would agree to one because of economic competition and geopolitical pressures.
“If someone had a credible plan for slowing down AI advances globally, I would likely support it,” he wrote. “However, I don’t think that’s going to happen. The geopolitical and economic incentives are pushing too hard to go full speed ahead.”
He urged national leaders to begin developing domestic protections and international rules before the social effects of the technology became more difficult to manage.
“My message to leaders is: You have a chance to act now, before unemployment rises sharply, communities are hurting, and public trust has eroded,” Gates wrote.
“You can make sure AI benefits everyone. And you can work with other governments to meet this national and global challenge.”
