Bill Gates’ first grandchild was born in 2023, so this year will forever be special to him, he says. It was also the year when artificial intelligence has become commonplace, stimulated by the arrival of ChatGPT. And it got Gates thinking about how the world his granddaughter will enter will change in positive ways thanks to AI.
A co-founder of Microsoft and a guiding figure in the PC era for several decades, Gates knows a thing or two about technological revolutions. He sees 2024 as a monumental year for artificial intelligence, with the technology becoming particularly important in global health, where Gates and his eponymous foundation have worked for decades.
“We now have a better idea of the types of tasks that AI will be able to accomplish on its own and those for which it will serve as a co-pilot,” Gates wrote in a lengthy article. publish on his blog GatesNote this week. “And it’s clearer than ever how AI can be used to improve access to education, mental health and more. That motivates me to make sure this technology helps reduce – and doesn’t does not contribute – to the terrible inequalities we see in the world. world.”
The year of AI
It’s been quite a year for AI, and specifically for generative AI. AI Generation go a little further than other AI methods. It can create new materials, such as text, images, speech or videos, based on its own understanding of the patterns it recognizes in the data.
Generation AI rose to prominence with the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022, although smart home controls and AI-powered virtual assistants such as Alexa have already made inroads into homes and culture popular.
ChatGPT, the pioneer of the onslaught of generative AI tools launched over the last year, allows anyone with a smartphone or laptop to use AI to generate information or images. These tools have been trained on enormous quantities of data which allow them to provide original answers to our queries — with different degrees of success. More … than 100 million people use ChatGPT every week, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in November. Microsoft is a significant investor in OpenAI.
Other companies are not ceding territory to Microsoft. In early December, for example, Google began updating its Bard AI chatbot with a new AI model called Gemini that offers enhanced text chat capabilities. Tech companies continue to add Gen AI capabilities into programs and devices of all kinds, from search engines to smartphones.
In 2023, investors have flocked almost 10 billion dollars in AI generation startups, more than double the $4.4 billion invested the previous year, according to Global data.
But even as Generation AI explodes in popularity, many users remain cautious. In addition to fears that AI could replace human employees, many worry that it could provide inaccurate information. Dictionary.com selected the AI term “hallucinate”, describing what happens when AI produces false information, because its word of the year.
Gates believes widespread AI integration will soon be available.
“If I had to make a prediction, in high-income countries like the United States, I would guess that we are 18-24 months away from a significant level of AI use by the general population,” writes- he.
But he also sees 2024 as a turning point.
What Gates sees on the road to AI ahead
Since leaving his post as CEO of Microsoft in 2000, Gates has focused on philanthropy, founding the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with his now ex-wife. It’s in areas related to his foundation’s work in global health that Gates sees AI becoming useful in 2024.
Combating antibiotic resistance: He cites an AI-based tool being developed at the Aurum Institute in Ghana that helps health workers prescribe antibiotics without contributing to antimicrobial resistance, where pathogens learn to evade antibiotic defenses. The tool can browse all available information on antimicrobial resistance and suggest the best drug plan for a patient.
Help with high-risk pregnancies: A woman dies in childbirth every two minutes, Gates says. He hopes AI can combat this horrible statistic. Ultrasound powered by AI can help identify pregnancy risks, and the Gates Foundation works to fund this process. Additionally, AI researchers from ARMMANa non-profit organization based in India, is working on a broad language model – the technology behind ChatGPT and other AI chatbots – that can help health workers treat high-risk pregnancies.
HIV risk assessment: Many people aren’t comfortable talking to a doctor about their sexual history, but it can be essential in assessing risk for diseases like HIV. Gates is excited about a South African chatbot called Your choice, developed by Sophie Pascoe of the Wits Health Consortium. The chatbot acts as a non-judgmental advisor that can provide advice around the clock, especially to vulnerable populations.
Quick access to medical records: While people in wealthy countries have easy access to their medical records, in other countries many people don’t have a documented medical history, Gates says. This can hinder their medical treatment because their doctors need to know about allergies, previous health conditions and more. A Pakistani team is working on a voice-activated mobile app that could make this task easier, by asking a series of questions and populating the patient’s medical record with the answers.
Beyond global health advances
Gates also sees AI as contributing to education, calling AI educational tools “mind-blowing” because they are tailored to each learner, and claim they “will only get better.” He is excited about how technology can be localized to students from many different countries and cultural contexts.
Not everything in Gates’ mind is AI-related. He is concerned about climate change, saying he is “blown away by the passion of young climate activists” and hopes that 2024 will see more investment in innovations that will help those most affected by the climate crisis.
And he even launches into the debate on nuclear energy. Gates notes that high-profile disasters such as Chernobyl in the 1980s and Three Mile Island in the late 1970s highlighted the risks, but over the past year he has seen a shift toward acceptance. He sees the once bogeyman world of energy as necessary to meet the world’s growing energy needs while eliminating carbon emissions.
From skeptic to enthusiast
A New York Times in early December, he noted that Gates was “long skeptical” about what AI could do. That changed in August 2022, when he attended a demo of OpenAI’s GPT-4, the large language model that underpins ChatGPT. This convinced Gates of the concept and he helped Microsoft “move aggressively to capitalize on generative AI.”
Even though Gates left the Microsoft board in 2020, he is still an advisor to its CEO Satya Nadella. Microsoft has taken a deep dive into the world of AI. The company invested heavily in OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, earlier this year. And it has added this technology to its online services, including its Bing search engine.
The company also reinvented Windows 11 with the addition of Microsoft Copilotwhich puts always-available AI assistance on the Windows 11 desktop taskbar. Microsoft Vice President Yusuf Mehdi calls it the most important operating system update yet, and it works on multiple apps and mobile phones.
Even Gates is having trouble adapting
Gates’ year-end letter compares the rise of AI to that of the Internet, email and search engines, pointing out that not long ago many people were not unfamiliar with these things, and that they have become part of our daily lives. Gates sees the same kind of sea change coming with AI.
But he admits it won’t be easy, giving an example from his own life.
“I was thinking about using AI tools for the foundation’s strategic reviews this year, which require reading hundreds of pages of briefing documents that an AI could accurately summarize for me,” says Gates.
But that didn’t happen.
“Old habits are hard to break, and I ended up preparing (for criticism) the same way I always do,” he writes.
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