Microsoft Co-founder Bill Gates Expresses Deep Concerns Over AI, Seeks to Reclaim Role
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Bill Gates is deeply worried about AI, and he’s no longer staying quiet Microsoft’s cofounder used to be optimistic about AI, now he’s concerned it could be ‘the worst source of injustice.’
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TechCrunchBill Gates posted a long essay to his Gates Notes site today, showing just how much the Microsoft co-founder has been thinking about the social impacts of AI.
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Having been conspicuously quiet on AI issues recently, Gates is back with a nearly 6,000-word essay seeking to reclaim a central role in shaping the technology globally. Titled “The turbulent AI era is here. The choices we make now are critical,” Gates warns the world is not remotely ready for what is coming. Worse still, he notes, “we are not preparing for it.”
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Gizmodo“The challenge is monumental,” Gates wrote in the essay, which ran to nearly 6,000 words. “Even under the best circumstances, the transition to this new AI era will be one of the most turbulent times in human history.”
MIT Technology ReviewThe philanthropist and former Microsoft CEO says he has been growing increasingly alarmed by the rate of change at which AI technology is advancing, especially since guardrails are not keeping pace. In a new essay published today, Gates argues that we have passed the points where multiple potential dangers should have been checked. “We’ve crossed the threshold in terms of [AI’s] bio-capabilities, cyber-capabilities, psychosocial capabilities, job-market-destruction capabilities, and even the lack of control,” he said in an interview with MIT Technology Review about his new memo. “I’m just stunned at the lack of concern and discussion outside of the industry.”
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In addition to the cautionary notes, he also advances some novel ideas for moving society forward. Among them are the concepts of human-reserved jobs, and taxes on robots and tokens. (A robot tax is a longtime notion of his.) The former would preserve some societally agreed-upon jobs for human beings, which he notes may vary from one nation to another. The latter is a tax that sets aside money earned from AI usage that replaces human work.
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The VergeGates’ labor anxieties — which he repeatedly returns to throughout his essay — leads him to issue rare, concrete policy proposals: tax AI tokens and robots to disincentivize companies from replacing human staff and bolster social funds, and reserve specific jobs for people, a domain he calls “Human Reserved.”
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Organizations ranging from OpenAI to UNESCO encourage AI use in the classroom, but many teachers aren’t sure how to handle it. Yet some promising approaches are emerging.
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—Linda Childers These stories are from the next issue of our magazine, which is all about kids. Subscribe now to get your copy as soon as it lands.
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01 TechCrunch But there were a few genuinely new ideas that could change the conversation if they take off. For starters, he proposes a “robot tax”:
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02 Gizmodo The risks posed by AI—like climate change and nuclear proliferation—are global problems in need of global solutions. And according to Bill Gates, humanity can no longer afford to wait on that front.
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03 The Verge Gates attempts to chart a path forward, but the essay largely treads familiar ground, identifying deeply entrenched, systemic hurdles familiar in matters of global governance while offering little in the way of novel solutions. The result is a bleak departure from the hopeful excitement about AI present in the billionaire’s 2023 essay on the matter, though Gates insists it is not too late “to ensure that the good outweighs the bad.”
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04 MIT Technology Review Introducing: the Kids issue If the desire to limit kids' use of technology was once a subcurrent, it has become a raging flood. Countries around the world are banning children from social media. Schools across the US are ditching iPads and Chromebooks for actual books. Kids themselves seem to be embracing this tech skepticism too: the hottest gadget for Gen Alpha is a vintage Sony Walkman.
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