‘I don’t trust him’: Curley pushes back after Bill Gates calls for AI job protections

Bill Gates warned in an essay published Wednesday that AI could cause “one of the most turbulent times in human history,” calling for government regulation, new taxes on AI, and a system he calls “Human Reserved” that would set aside certain jobs for human workers. Gates said there is “no plan” for the economic upheaval ahead.

KIRO host John Curley said on “The John Curley Show” on KIRO Newsradio that the real problem isn’t AI; it’s letting people like Gates write the rules the government will enforce.

“My problem with Mr. Gates is the people that he’s saying something needs to be done to is the government,” Curley said. “In 1998, Bill Gates was standing there testifying, and he did not want the government involved in the regulation of the internet. No way, no how. And now he’s running to the government saying, ‘You guys need to do something.'”

Curley said Gates wants government to serve as a referee, but only after he and other insiders draft the rulebook.

“Before the referee gets on the field, he wants himself and a few other selected people to write the rules by which the referees will be blowing whistles and throwing flags,” Curley said. “That’s the problem. The problem is who’s writing the rules.”

Curley argued that Gates’ “Human Reserved” proposal, having government decide which jobs to protect from AI, would inevitably devolve into lobbying and favoritism.

“Let’s say lawyers are on the chopping block. Then you just get all these lawyers going down there, and they’re going to lobby: ‘No, no, no, protect our job, save our job, put us on Bill Gates’ human reserve list,'” Curley said. “So then they’re cutting deals here and there, and certain people are getting breaks.”

Curley says protecting jobs hurts the people who can’t afford them

Curley used the example of a lawyer who charges $500 for work AI could do for $10, arguing that protecting that job benefits the lawyer but harms the consumer.

“The $500 lawyer is happy, but the person who can’t afford the $500, they’re not happy,” Curley said. “AI could do it for $10. Screw the guy that can’t pay the $500.”

Curley compared the logic to economist Henry Hazlitt’s “broken window” parable from “Economics in One Lesson,” in which breaking a baker’s window generates work for the glazier but costs the tailor the $300 the baker would have spent on a suit.

“You’re taking away the free choice of other people to spend the money somewhere else,” Curley said. “When you have someone like Bill Gates tell the government, ‘Protect certain jobs,’ why? Why those jobs? And who benefits from the protection other than the people that have their jobs protected?”

Curley acknowledged the scale of AI disruption is real, noting that unlike past technological shifts, when displaced farmers moved to factory work and blacksmiths became mechanics, AI threatens to eliminate multiple layers of employment at once with no clear next job for workers to move to. But he said government intervention is still the wrong answer.

“Anytime you see a big business guy in Washington, D.C., they’re writing the rules to stop the competition from coming along and taking away any of their market value,” Curley said. “They don’t want the guy who’s starting a business in his basement or garage to come in and try to compete against them.”

KIRO producer Joe Wallace noted that Gates is floating ideas, not proposing specific legislation. Curley was unmoved.

“I don’t trust him as far as I could throw a Russian chess player,” Curley said.

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