Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates warned that the rise of artificial intelligence will present major challenges as it reshapes industries and work, and suggested that exploring ways to reserve certain kinds of work for humans could help ease the transition.

In an essay published Tuesday on his GatesNotes website, Gates called for public debate and a plan to manage the technological evolution of AI and its impact on the workforce and society at large — an effort he said should be a priority given the technology's transformative potential.

"In terms of equity, AI will either be the greatest equalizer ever invented, or the worst source of injustice. The challenge is monumental. 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.

Gates said significant questions remain about how AI can be deployed without widening the divide between the rich and the poor, as well as how to best protect those who are vulnerable to losing their jobs to the technology.

"I believe that answering these questions and acting on the answers should be the world's top priority. If the world takes the right steps, AI will be a force for good and leave everyone better off," Gates wrote.

"Unfortunately, right now we are not preparing for it. I don't see evidence that leaders, experts and communities are confronting the challenges adequately," he said. "There is no plan to ease the entry into the AI era."

Gates said he thinks many commentators are underestimating the scope of the impact AI will have, in part because of current reliability issues, and because analogies to the impact of past technological innovations are misleading given how much more transformative AI can be. That view frames his broader argument that the challenge is not only building better systems, but deciding how people, employers and governments adapt as those systems become more capable.

The billionaire co-founder of Microsoft acknowledged his potential bias toward technology in general and AI in particular, given how he made his fortune, along with his ongoing work as chairman of the Gates Foundation, which involves AI deployment.

However, he added that his "views on AI are not motivated by the potential to make more money for myself," noting that profits generated from his investments will go to the Gates Foundation to tackle inequity.

"For as long as I can remember, I've wished innovation could happen faster. With AI, my feelings are more complicated. I wish the world could get the benefits rapidly and delay the problems it will cause as long as possible, but the benefits and problems are arriving at the same time," Gates wrote.

"I believe we need time to prepare for the period of social, political and economic upheaval we are about to enter," he added. "The people who need the most time are the ones who have the least – the accounting worker who's replaced by a bot or the $20-an-hour worker who loses their job to a $10-an-hour robot."

Gates said AI is likely to affect workers in industries such as law, customer service, medicine, software and manufacturing over the course of a decade. "There will be some new jobs, but without the right policies there will be far fewer than exist today," he wrote.

"If someone had a credible plan for slowing down AI advances globally, I would likely support it. 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 wrote.

Looking ahead, Gates said he believes that as AI and robotics improve, "we'll set aside certain things for only people to do," with some roles classified as "Human Reserved" for varying reasons.

"We might set something aside as Human Reserved for economic reasons. For example, we may do it because allowing machines to take over a certain role will displace a large number of people who can't easily change jobs," he said.

"Sometimes the decision to make something Human Reserved will be driven by other factors. In health, for example, imagine a robot giving you the awful news that you have an incurable disease. There's no technical reason why it couldn't. Yet it shouldn't," Gates said.

He added that he believes the Human Reserved domain "will evolve over time," as AI could be phased in over years or decades in certain fields, or operate as a persistent mixture of humans and AI in areas such as education and healthcare. For readers watching how the shift unfolds, that suggests the debate will likely center not on whether AI is adopted, but on where human judgment remains essential and how those boundaries are set in practice.

"The lines will vary from place to place. Some countries might insist on having humans take care of the elderly. But a country like Japan, which has a shrinking workforce and not enough young people to care for the old, may welcome a caregiving robot," Gates wrote.

Gates said he does not have answers to a host of open questions, including who would determine what roles could be reserved for humans, the criteria used to make those decisions, how to prevent companies from skirting those rules, and how such dynamics would affect international trade.

Those questions "will need to be worked out in public as part of the transition plan," Gates said.