Bill Gates Talks to CNET About AI, Misinformation and Climate Change

Bill Gates doesn’t believe tech experts hold all the answers on how artificial intelligence will fully impact jobs and social activities in the future, but he does think it’s important we all start working with AI tools now, given where the tech is headed.

“The ability to work well with AI and take advantage of it is now more important than understanding Excel or the internet,” he told me. It’s one of the topics I discussed with him during our conversation about What’s Next? The Future with Bill Gates, a new docuseries landing on Netflix on Sept. 18.

Described by the Microsoft co-founder in the opening episode as “a show about our future,” the upcoming five-part series examines multiple issues: AI, misinformation, income inequality, the climate crisis and global health. The doc spotlights not only Gates’ perspective but differing viewpoints from doctors, educators, scientists, activists, entrepreneurs, artists like Lady Gaga and filmmaker James Cameron, and Gates’ family. These contrasting views — and its discussions — gave the tech pioneer something to ponder.

Five years ago, Netflix aimed to give viewers a tour of Gates’ problem-solving mindset through the documentary Inside Bill’s Brain: Decoding Bill Gates. The Davis Guggenheim-directed series explored Microsoft’s early days, the tech innovator’s childhood and his charitable pursuits in global health, climate change and toilet sanitation in developing countries. Today, Gates is still seeking to solve most of these problems through tech and philanthropy — but now AI is here.

What Bill Gates thinks about AI and jobs

Writer Tim Urban and OpenAI’s Greg Brockman are among those featured in the first episode, sharing their insights on ChatGPT and the evolution of AI superintelligence, while other experts weigh in on the ethics, benefits and drawbacks of AI. At one moment, New York Times journalist Kevin Roose brings up AI’s impact on jobs. 

Cameron, meanwhile, raises points about how it’s become harder for him to write sci-fi as technology moves at a faster pace and expresses concerns about AI. He and Gates discuss its effects on humans’ sense of purpose and how Cameron holds a “dystopian” view toward the tech as opposed to Gates’ optimism.

Pointing to Gates’ conversation with Cameron, I asked for his thoughts on the future of humans and jobs with AI. He asserts that AI could help with shortages of teachers, physicians and mental health professionals but admits humans ought to be taken into account and limits should probably be established.

“We don’t want to watch robots play baseball, and so where is the boundary where you say, ‘Okay, whatever the machines can do is great,’ and these other things are perhaps very social activities, intimate things, where we keep those jobs,” he said. He explains these conversations will be ongoing for the next 10 to 20 years as the nature of work evolves with AI, but it’s great that discussions are happening right now. Why? 

“Because that’s not for technologists to understand better than anyone else. That really gets to the heart of religious values, philosophical values… and it’s kind of a nirvana. But are we going to manage it well? And how quickly does it come?” Gates notes that this episode of the series not only looks at how AI’s benefits will dominate conversations over the next couple decades but also examines how we rethink spending our time when the way we work changes.

That doesn’t mean people should ignore AI’s uses today. As a former CEO, he’d advise everyone to “use AI as a tool.” According to Gates, “It’s becoming — whether you’re an illustrator or a coder or a support person or somebody who is in the health care system — the ability to work well with AI and take advantage of it is now more important than understanding Excel or the internet.”

Misinformation and the problem of trust online

Exactly how difficult is it to find trustworthy information in a digital world? It’s a challenge — even for the tech-savvy team behind Gates. From conspiracy theories to deepfake images to disinformation, they track what is posted about him online. As a public figure, Gates is used to scrutiny, but some things still catch him off guard, like people buying into conspiracy theories and wrongfully pinning the onset of the pandemic on him or falsely suggesting he put microchips in vaccines to track people’s movements.

While he feels keeping an eye on how his name pops up online might seem like a hassle, he’s not really bothered by it. In fact, he finds some of it pretty amusing, like the idea that he’s using chips to keep tabs on people. He even had a woman confront him on the street about it. Gates told her, “I really don’t need to track you in particular.”

As the Netflix series broaches the topic of misinformation, it turns to the notion that social media networks and other platforms play a role in spreading truths, untruths or pure entertainment. A group of Stanford students and experts discuss how governments, businesses and individuals all participate in creating and disseminating misinformation.

Gates’ 21-year-old daughter, Phoebe, offered some color on the topic as well. In a callback to a Reddit AMA Gates did years ago that sparked some conspiracy theories, she cautions him about what he says and posts, and how it can quickly blow up online because of his name and public persona. To his surprise, she talked about experiencing online harassment due to her promoting health issues important to her on social media. Blowback was connected not only to a rise in her follower count but also her family’s famous last name.

That said, Gates doesn’t have a solid solution for tackling misinformation. I asked him how can we defend against it. Ideally, there will be “systems and behaviors” in place to help us be more aware of who created what, he said, but he believes most countries are striving to find suitable boundaries when it comes to addressing misinformation.

“The US is a tough one because we have the notion of the First Amendment and what are the exceptions like yelling ‘fire’ in a theater,” he explained. “I do think over time, with things like deepfakes, most of the time you’re online you’re going to want to be in an environment where the people are truly identified, that is they’re connected to a real-world identity that you trust, instead of just people saying whatever they want.”

As viewers and avid internet users, you may wonder who should oversee how misinformation is handled. Government agencies? Tech companies? Both? Gates doesn’t answer that question directly but instead sees a need for some flexibility when it comes to the misinformation oversight, compared with the other topics highlighted in this doc that may have clearer paths to resolution. 

Watch this: The Future According to Bill Gates: We Talked With the Tech Giant About AI, Misinformation and More

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Making progress on climate change

Two things stand out during an episode on global warming: Gates’ mention of technologies currently “sitting on a shelf” and skepticism from some younger-aged climate activists who meet with him. In the episode, Gates says he learns from them, just like the scientists.

Though clean tech efforts are ramping up, there are concerns that things aren’t moving fast enough. Public policy and scale are factors when it comes to progress. So what tech is available right now?

Gates told me new innovation is needed for industries like steel and cement manufacturing, and his Breakthrough Energy venture is part of funding those projects. “There are other areas, like food products, that have a low carbon footprint where we just need to drive awareness,” Gates said. He explains that as people drive demand up, it’ll help propel more innovation while reducing extra costs (the green premium) tied to buying things like electric heat pumps and vehicles or solar panels.

As a developed nation, the US — and its consumers — can support efforts to increase demand and innovation. “Rich countries have to drive those markets, and that’s how you eventually get to price points that you can go to the middle-income countries where 65% of our planet lives and say to the consumers there that it is affordable to them,” Gates said. He says getting wealthier consumers who support the cause to buy these products is the part of the path to worldwide adoption.

Another aspect is policy, an area where Breakthrough Energy has leveraged its influence. The organization served in an advisory role for the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act in the US, a piece of climate legislation that Gates said provides “tax credits for existing and new technologies to accelerate their deployment.”

In the docuseries, viewers learn about the venture firm’s current investments and what’s being done in the realms of nuclear energy, food waste and construction. Is it enough to satisfy the young activists who challenge Gates on climate change? Does he think we’ll achieve the goal of reducing carbon emissions by 2050? Maybe — or maybe not.

“We’re not meeting the activists’ high expectations, including staying below the 1.5 degrees [Celsius]” target for limiting the increase in global temperatures, Gates said. “We are making enough progress that people should not despair. That is, we need to keep working on this.” 

What else should you expect from the Netflix docuseries?

You will have to stream the entire series to hear more from Gates and featured experts, public figures and everyday people about each topic and its myriad challenges, including a dive into income inequality and infectious disease. A cause that is important to the Gates Foundation is global health, and the final episode of the series is one that Gates would like viewers to take in.

“I’ll be disappointed if the global health issue doesn’t get significant viewership,” he says, smiling. “Because of my time and resources, right up there with climate, that’s the thing I work on the most and keeping that visible — like malaria deaths, which is a big focus of that, the 500,000 kids a year who are dying of that. I’m trying to be smarter about how we get everybody to care about that so that the rich countries stay engaged in helping out.”