Microsoft co-founder, through his own charitable foundation, seeks AI innovations that could improve life in low-income areas.
Given a strong year for AI, Bill Gates wrote a letter examining how the technology will impact the future and comparing its emergence to the creation of the Internet. He in particular remembered the path of the latter – which started from absolute obscurity for many and ended with daily use for almost everyone at work and at home.
“We are just at the beginning of this transition, and it is an exciting and somewhat confusing time. If you're confused about how to best use AI, you're not alone. I thought I was using the tool to develop a Foundation strategy, which usually requires reading hundreds of pages. But old habits die hard, so I ended up doing things as usual,” Gates writes.
He also recalls how he invested in innovation while working at Microsoft, and called it the main reason for everyone's progress in all areas of life, as it contributed to the advent of electricity, cars, airplanes and significant advances in medicine over the past few years . Bill looked to statistics showing that the number of children dying before the age of five has halved since 2000, and attributed this result to innovations that have allowed scientists to develop effective vaccines that are safe and accessible to all.
Gates, through the Foundation, plans to further explore AI technology and optimize its capabilities for creating new drugs by combining large amounts of data and machine learning tools to speed up the process.
“Some companies are already working on cancer drugs this way. But a key priority for the Gates Foundation in artificial intelligence is to ensure that these tools also address health problems that disproportionately affect the world's poorest people, particularly AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.”
Gates previously said that AI would “kill” Google Search and Amazon, and also make “three days” possible because it would “cook meals and all that.”