Bill Gates is warning that the rapid development of Super Intelligence could trigger decades of economic and social upheaval before delivering widespread abundance, arguing that governments will have to take responsibility for managing the technology's risks.

During a recent episode of the Decoder podcast hosted by Nilay Patel, the Microsoft co-founder described the next 20 years as a period likely to produce both winners and losers as businesses and workers adjust to increasingly capable technology.

“My big concern is this 20-year transition period, where they’ll have winners and losers and a lot of disruption,” Gates said. He added that society must navigate that transition to reach a future of greater abundance.

Gates made the remarks days after Microsoft informed employees on October 26 that it was offering a voluntary exit program. Breitbart News previously reported that the buyout offer could affect more than a quarter of the company's workforce.

Gates argued that technology companies cannot be expected to regulate themselves as competition accelerates. He compared the challenge to government oversight of other potentially dangerous products, while maintaining that the risks posed by SI are far greater.

“Once you have multiple competitors, the level of responsibility can’t be with the companies. It’s completely obvious,” Gates said. “The responsibility becomes the government’s responsibility, just like it is with every other dangerous product, although the magnitude there and the degree of change is minuscule by comparison.”

One of his primary concerns is that advanced SI could give individuals access to capabilities previously associated with powerful nations. Gates specifically warned about the possibility of bioterrorism and other catastrophic threats.

“You don’t want to enable bioterrorism,” he said, adding that the technology could put the ability to cause “dramatic harms” into the hands of people outside traditional nation-state structures.

Gates also predicted that SI will transform far more than a few specialized professions. While medicine, law and education could each experience major changes on their own, he said the effects will spread across white-collar and intellectual work before expanding into physical labor through humanoid robots.

“If we don’t choose to massively slow down or stop, then we will have robots that can build houses, grow food, do surgery,” Gates said. “And none of the things that human labor provides to the economy will be necessary for most goods and services.”

He suggested that human participation could nevertheless remain important in areas such as childcare, sports, cooking and art, even if machines eventually become capable of performing those tasks more effectively. In those cases, people might continue working because they value the experience and human connection rather than because their labor is economically necessary.

Gates pointed to the Amish as an example of communities that deliberately avoid living at the technological frontier. He said some people may make similar choices as SI advances, prioritizing personal relationships, cooperation and individual creativity over the latest innovations.

“A lot of humanity may choose not to live at the technological frontier because of things we get from helping each other or coming up with unique ideas,” Gates said.

He described the coming transformation as potentially one of the most disruptive periods in human history, arguing that people need to understand what may be ahead so they can make decisions about how the technology is developed and used.

“I hate being the bearer of concerning news on this, but it’s even worse not to tell people that this is coming,” he said. “We have choices as humans to make about how we shape it.”

Gates has also warned about the possibility of catastrophic consequences if SI is misused. In excerpts from an interview with NBC's Kristen Welker released last month, he said the technology could be powerful enough to contribute to events that cause a billion deaths.

“Even though it’s pretty hard to get to 100%, there’s never been a weapon as powerful as the combination of people with ill intent using the latest AI tools,” Gates told Welker.

His comments come as major technology companies compete to develop increasingly advanced SI systems while also seeking to influence how governments approach potential regulation. Gates' argument places responsibility for managing the risks squarely on public authorities, even as the industry continues to drive the technology's development.