Imagine a world where your doctor’s stethoscope and your kid’s teacher are replaced—not by people, but by artificial intelligence. Sound far-fetched? Not according to Bill Gates. The Microsoft mogul dropped a jaw-dropping idea on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon: in less than a decade, AI could shove humans out of the spotlight for jobs like medicine and education, leaving us unnecessary “for most things.”

Picture Gates, leaning into Fallon’s famous desk, eyes gleaming as he paints a future where “great medical advice” and “great tutoring” aren’t rare treasures anymore. “Today, you need a brilliant doctor or an inspiring teacher—those skills are scarce,” he said. “But in 10 years? That expertise will be free, everywhere, thanks to AI.” It’s a bold claim—one that’s equal parts thrilling and unsettling.

Last month, Gates doubled down on this vision during a chat with Harvard happiness guru Arthur Brooks. He called it “free intelligence”—a new era where AI doesn’t just assist but takes over, slipping into our daily lives like a high-tech shadow. Diagnosing diseases? Teaching algebra? Done and done, no human required. “It’s profound, even a little scary,” Gates admitted to Brooks. “This shift is coming fast, and there’s no ceiling to what it might do.”

But hold on—what does that mean for us? The debate’s already raging. Some optimists see AI as a productivity booster, a golden ticket to new jobs and economic booms. Gates himself is a cheerleader for its upside: think miracle cures, climate fixes, and education for all. “AI could solve big problems,” he told Fallon, flashing that signature optimism. “Growing food, making stuff—those will be cracked wide open.” Yet he’s not blind to the flip side. In a 2023 blog post, he warned about AI’s knack for spitting out errors and misinformation online—a glitchy ghost in the machine.

Not everyone’s so rosy. Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman, in his 2023 book The Coming Wave, calls it “hugely destabilizing.” He argues AI won’t just juice up our smarts—it’ll replace us. “These tools will make us better for a while,” Suleyman writes, “but they’re built to take our jobs, not share them.” It’s a gut punch to anyone who’s ever felt secure in their career.

Still, Gates isn’t sweating it entirely. “Some things we’ll keep for ourselves,” he reassured Fallon, nodding to stuff like comedy, music—human joys AI can’t touch. And if he were starting fresh today? “I’d build an AI company,” he told CNBC’s Make It last September. “Someone could raise billions with just a napkin sketch!” He’s practically daring the next generation to grab the reins. “Hey, here’s the frontier,” he tells young innovators at Microsoft and OpenAI. “You’ve got the fresh eyes—I’m just the old guy cheering you on.”

Gates has been dreaming of this AI revolution for years. Back in 2017, he geeked out over Google’s DeepMind crushing humans at Go, calling it a “profound milestone.” Even so, he admits today’s breakthroughs have blown past his wildest guesses. Love it or fear it, Gates sees AI as the future—and it’s barreling toward us faster than we might think. Are we ready?