Bill Gates says predictions about how good or bad AI will get are too dramatic. Jordan Vonderhaal — Bloomberg/Getty Images
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has doubled down on his support for artificial intelligence, dismissing concerns that the technology could destroy humanity and conquer the world.
The billionaire philanthropist has been working with Sam Altman’s OpenAI since 2016 and has long been a cautious champion of the technology. Since then, Microsoft has poured $13 billion into ChatGPT makers.
In a blog post on his website Gates Notes, the founders of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation likened large-scale language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT and Google’s Bard to other disruptive innovations such as automobiles and nuclear weapons. rice field.
Gates noted that both filled the public with terror, but were wrestled over a series of guardrails into a usable form.
“We didn’t ban cars. We adopted speed limits, safety standards, licensing requirements, drunk driving laws, and other road rules,” Gates wrote. Gates just helped cast another AI unicorn.
“The global non-proliferation regime has its shortcomings, but it has prevented the all-out nuclear war that our generation feared as children.”
Using nuclear weapons as an example, Gates suggested that regulators should look to history for a blueprint for how to deal with chatbot development.
He explained: “For example, this would have a huge impact on education, but decades ago so did portable calculators, and more recently computers were allowed to be used in classrooms. You can learn from it.”
As a result, “the future of AI is neither as bleak as some think, nor as rosy as others think,” Gates believes.
This opinion has previously drawn the ire of fellow tech giant Tesla CEO Elon Musk. In response to one of Gates’ earlier essays on the power of LLM, Musk lashed out: His understanding of AI was limited. It is still. “
At the time, Musk was one of the early signatories of an open letter calling for a six-month moratorium on developing anything more advanced than OpenAI’s GPT-4 chatbot. The Twitter owner has since launched his own AI company, xAI.
AI itself needs to be turned on
Gates also believes that the problems posed by AI can be addressed by the technology itself.
For example, deepfakes, which are created by a form of AI called deep learning and can generate realistic, digitally altered videos and images, have the power to undermine elections and democracies, and make individual victims “horrible emotionally.” Gates believes it will have an impact.
Gates, who reportedly has a fortune of $134 billion, said he was “hopeful” thanks to the fact that AI could not only create deepfakes, but identify them. . He emphasized that Intel is developing deepfake detectors while the government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is working on technology to identify whether video or audio has been manipulated.
The 67-year-old is also “cautiously optimistic” that the security industry will be able to effectively use the technology to combat more sophisticated hackers.
“AI can be used for good as well as bad purposes,” he wrote, noting that government and private sector security teams need access to the latest technology to counter such attacks. pointed out there is.
Gates delves into the veiled moratorium on Musk-backed development for this reason, writing:
“Cybercriminals never stop creating new tools, as do those who use AI to design nuclear weapons and bioterrorist attacks. Efforts to stop them must continue at the same pace.”
government needs to strengthen
Gates also addressed two major public concerns: unemployment and changes in education.
Goldman Sachs predicts 300 million of them will be lost to AI, but Gates has put the blame squarely on governments and businesses. It’s like the chaos in people’s lives as manufacturing jobs in the United States dwindle. “
From deepfakes to kids using ChatGPT to do their homework, Gates said policymakers need to be “prepared to have an informed and thoughtful dialogue with voters,” adding that legislation He said it needed to establish how closely it would work with other countries on this issue.
Finally, Gates advised the general public to “be proactive”.
“This is the most groundbreaking innovation any of us will ever see in our lifetimes, and a healthy public debate needs everyone to be educated about the technology, its benefits, and its risks.” It depends on whether there is,” he concluded.
