Bill Gates stunned by AI coding tool surpassing his own skills

Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, has revealed that artificial intelligence has stunned him only three times in his life, with the latest being this year. The technology that left him amazed was Anthropic's AI coding tool, Claude Code. The first time he was stunned was in 1980 when he saw a graphical user interface, which later shaped modern personal computers. The second instance was in 2022 when OpenAI's leaders demonstrated what would become ChatGPT at his home.

Gates, who began programming as a teenager and co-founded Microsoft in 1975, found Claude Code particularly impressive because it outperformed him in coding, a skill he considers his strongest. “The idea that now these things are in a meaningful sense better than I am is like: What the hell?” he said in a recent interview. He highlighted that AI's progress, especially in coding, has exceeded his expectations.

In a lengthy essay on his blog, Gates Notes, Gates warned that the transition to AI will be one of the most turbulent times in human history. He noted that the world is not adequately preparing for this shift. Gates expects AI to first reshape jobs in software engineering, sales, customer support, and paralegal work. However, he cautioned that while coding efficiency is increasing, demand for software could grow, potentially offsetting job losses in the field.

Gates has been tracking AI's impact on programmers and previously stated that AI already makes software developers at least twice as efficient. He believes the rapid improvement in AI technology is starting to disrupt job demand in software development. Claude Code, showcased at Anthropic's Code with Claude developer event in May, allows developers to hand over programming tasks, which the tool then writes, edits, and debugs.