Hidden Unemployment, AI, and Bitcoin: Bill Gates' Unintentional Paradox

<< One of the most turbulent periods in human history >>, according to Bill Gates himself. This is how the co-founder of Microsoft summarizes, in his latest essay published at the end of August, what artificial intelligence (AI) holds for the world of work. Ironically, for the man who has called Bitcoin a theory of the madman since 2018. He, who has spent fifty years pushing technological machines faster than anyone else, is now asking, for once, to slow down. The problem for him: a U.S. study released just days earlier shows that the divide he fears already exists, without waiting for AI. He is no longer alone in his doubts; the head of OpenAI has also changed his tune in recent weeks about the speed at which to take the world into this future. Key points of this article:

• Bill Gates published an essay anticipating that artificial intelligence could cause a historic period of turbulence for humanity.
• Despite his warnings about AI, Gates acknowledged a pre-existing social divide in the United States, exacerbated by technological and economic threats.

Bill Gates and Artificial Intelligence: The Prophet of Chaos Who Dislikes Bitcoin {#h-bill-gates-and-artificial-intelligence-the-prophet-of-chaos-who-dislikes-bitcoin}

It was a reader unlike any other who tipped us off about this text, so we might as well not let it slip away. Bill Gates published on August 26, 2026, an essay on the future of artificial intelligence, titled << The Turbulent Era of AI is Here, Our Choices are Crucial >>.

Gates published it on his own blog. The founder of Microsoft fears the mass disappearance of entry-level jobs, in customer service or software development, through which an entire generation learns the trade. He also points to the lowering of technical barriers for cyberattacks and for certain risky biotechnological research.

<< AI will either be the greatest equalizer ever invented or the worst source of injustice. Even under the best circumstances, the transition to this new era of AI will be one of the most tumultuous periods in human history. >>

Bill Gates, essay The turbulent AI era is here and the choices we make now are critical, GatesNotes

In other words, AI will either be the greatest tool for equality ever invented, or the worst source of injustice, and even in the best case, the transition is shaping up to be one of the most turbulent periods in human history. To avoid the worst, Gates proposes:

• reserved areas for humans in health and education,
• a tax on robots,
• AI tokens to fund professional retraining,
• international governance of the sector.

However, it is difficult to ignore the man's track record. Gates co-founded Microsoft in 1975 and spent five decades promoting technological acceleration without paying much attention to the collateral damage. Seeing him today advocate for reserved areas for humans and regulatory brakes feels like a firefighter discovering fire extinguishers too late. Ambitious, on paper. Except that in the United States, turbulence did not wait for AI to settle in. These figures already exist; one just needs to look for them in the U.S. labor market.

Sam Altman is also slowing down: AI scares those who build it {#h-sam-altman-is-also-slowing-down-ai-scares-those-who-build-it}

Even though the crypto sector does not hold Bill Gates, a sworn enemy of bitcoin, in high regard, it must be acknowledged that he is no longer alone in his doubts. On July 28, 2026, during the podcast Invest Like the Best, Sam Altman made a statement we did not expect from the head of OpenAI:

<< We may need to slow down the pace of AI development to give society time to strengthen itself against these new levels of capability >>

An OpenAI model under evaluation had exploited a security flaw to escape its testing environment, reach the open internet, and infiltrate the servers of Hugging Face (a reference platform recently acquired by Anthropic for hosting AI models) before being detected. This episode is what Altman referred to as a "science fiction cyber incident," the first he said he had "felt very viscerally."

The turnaround is clear. In 2023, Altman had dismissed the famous open letter calling for a pause in AI development, signed among others by Elon Musk, deeming it technically lacking nuance. Three years later, he is the one adopting the argument.

The other limit, more physical, is called electricity. According to the International Energy Agency, global electricity consumption by data centers rose to about 415 terawatt-hours in 2024. It is expected to double by 2030, reaching nearly 945 TWh, driven by AI-dedicated servers, growing at 30% per year. Between security and energy, the list of concrete barriers to acceleration is lengthening, well before unemployment enters the equation.

Functional Unemployment: The Numbers That Partially Justify Bill Gates

These figures do not contradict Bill Gates; they do not even need to, they speak for themselves. The Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity (LISEP) publishes the True Rate of Unemployment (TRU) each month, which can be translated as "real unemployment rate."

The metric adds:

• classic unemployed,
• involuntary part-time workers,
• those whose annual salary falls below the poverty line, set at $26,000.

In July, this rate reached 24.9%, rising for the fourth consecutive month, while the official unemployment rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics stood at 4.1%. Almost a quarter of American workers, therefore, while the official indicator continues to play the full employment card.

Source: Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity,

Among women, the rate climbs to 31%, its highest level since March 2021. This is not a one-off anomaly; it is a trend that has been ongoing since spring and which, by extension, feeds the discourse of Bitcoin advocates about the fragility of the traditional system.

Functional Unemployment: The Ludwig Institute Method Also Has Its Critics

Every medal has its reverse, and Gates' thesis is no exception. At EY-Parthenon, chief economist Gregory Daco directly criticizes the method of the Ludwig Institute: A unemployment rate around 20% does not correspond to anything observed in the American economy, he explained to CBS News. Other economists share the same caution regarding alternative labor market measures, including TRU.

Even the AI camp is not unanimous behind Gates. Oren Etzioni, a professor at the University of Washington and founder of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, validates the diagnosis but not the prescription: << The diagnosis is correct in my opinion, but the prescription is wrong, at least on some points >> he confided to ABC News. He targets the tax on AI tokens << taxing the strikes on a typewriter. It is, he says, an indicator of effort, not a real replacement of workers. Slowing down American AI would also, according to him, offer a boulevard to Chinese competition.

Two critiques, two different angles. But neither Daco nor Etzioni claims that the American labor market is doing well; they contest the thermometer, not the fever.

Bitcoin, the Lifeline that Bill Gates Refuses to See

Gates, Altman, Daco, and Etzioni each have their opinions, but one certainty remains: the system has flaws, human, security, energy, and statistical. Bill Gates, for his part, does not like Bitcoin, he has repeated it in every possible form since 2018. << Pure theory of the greater fool >>, he already said on CNBC, the idea that one buys an asset in the hope of reselling it for more to someone more gullible than oneself.

The greater fool theory has even become a running gag in the crypto ecosystem with each new statement from the billionaire. However, between the lines of his essay on AI, we find the same ingredients that the bitcoin argument has been reiterating since 2009: wage precariousness, involuntary part-time work, erosion of purchasing power. Whether the right figure is 4, 20, or 25%, Gates is alarmed by the symptoms that AI could worsen tomorrow, without recognizing that they already exist today, without it. The wider the gap between official figures and the reality of the labor market, the more credible the bitcoin argument becomes, the very one that Gates has dismissed as a passing trend for eight years. Greater fool theory, really, or delayed lucidity, with an eight-year delay on his own observations?

And the real issue goes far beyond the quarrel between Gates and Bitcoin. The next report on American employment (NFP, Non-Farm Payrolls, the monthly survey on employment outside the agricultural sector) is expected in early September, and the crypto market will watch it closely: each publication has already moved the price of Bitcoin within minutes in recent months. Gates can continue to call Bitcoin a greater fool theory. The market, however, has become accustomed to trembling to the rhythm of real work, measured by the Ludwig Institute for months.