Bill Gates is a passionate technology advocate (big surprise), but his predictions about the future of computing aren't uniformly positive.

During a wide-ranging Reddit "Ask me Anything" session-- one that touched upon everything from his biggest regrets to his favorite spread to lather on bread -- the Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist outlined a future that is equal parts promising and ominous.

Midway through the discussion on Wednesday, Gates was asked what personal computing will look like in 2045. Gates responded by asserting that the next 30 years will be a time of rapid progress.

"Even in the next 10 problems like vision and speech understanding and translation will be very good," he wrote. "Mechanical robot tasks like picking fruit or moving a hospital patient will be solved. Once computers/robots get to a level of capability where seeing and moving is easy for them then they will be used very extensively."

He went on to highlight a Microsoft project known as the "Personal Agent," which is being designed to help people manage their memory, attention and focus. "The idea that you have to find applications and pick them and they each are trying to tell you what is new is just not the efficient model - the agent will help solve this," he said. "It will work across all your devices."

The response from Reddit users was mixed, with some making light of Gates's revelation ("Clippy 2.0?," wrote one user) -- and others sounding the alarm.

"This technology you are developing sounds at its essence like the centralization of knowledge intake," a Redditor wrote. "Ergo, whomever controls this will control what information people make their own. Even today, we see the daily consequences of people who live in an environment that essentially tunnel-visions their knowledge."

Shortly after, Gates was asked how much of an existential threat superintelligent machines pose to humans.

The question has been at the forefront of several recent discussions among prominent futurists. Last month, theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking said artificial intelligence "could spell the end of the human race."

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Bill Gates on dangers of artificial intelligence: I don ...