Forget the four-day week—Microsoft founder Bill Gates is anticipating a three-day work week could be possible thanks to artificial intelligence.

Amid fears that mankind will struggle to compete against computers leading to mass unemployment, Gates is refreshingly predicting a utopian world where “machines can make all the food and the stuff, and we don’t have to work as hard”.

“In the near-term the productivity gain you get from AI is very exciting,” Gates recently said on Trevor Noah’s “What Now?” podcast. “It’s taking away part of the drudge work”

While many leaders view increased efficiency as the chance to get more out of their workers, he thinks it’ll provide the working population with the chance to dial back their efforts.

“If you eventually get a society where you only have to work three days a week, that’s probably OK,” the fourth richest man in the world said.

“If you free up human labor, you can help elder people better, have smaller class sizes – you know, the demand for labor to do good things is still there,” he added. “And then if you ever get beyond that, you have a lot of leisure time and you’ll have to figure out what to do with it.”

Overall, at 68 years old, the tech entrepreneur-tuned-philanthropist has gained a more philosophical view on the importance of work: “If you zoom out, the purpose of life is not just to do jobs.”

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