Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft and a philanthropist, gave his first public comments after an open letter sparked a debate about the future of artificial intelligence (AI). He told Reuters that pausing the development of AI would not solve the challenges ahead, and instead, we should focus on using the developments in AI.
Gates believes that it would be better to identify the tricky areas of AI development rather than pausing it, as it is hard to understand how a pause could work globally. He disagrees with the open letter, co-signed by Elon Musk and more than 1,000 AI experts, which demanded an urgent pause in the development of systems “more powerful” than Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s new GPT-4.
The experts, including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, said in the letter that the potential risks and benefits to society need to be assessed.
Gates has been a bullish supporter of AI, describing it as revolutionary as the Internet or mobile phones. He believes that AI should be used to help reduce some of the world’s worst inequities. However, he acknowledged that the details of any pause would be complicated to enforce.
“I don’t really understand who they’re saying could stop, and would every country in the world agree to stop, and why to stop,” he said. “But there are a lot of different opinions in this area.”
Microsoft has invested billions of dollars in ChatGPT owner OpenAI, seeking to outpace its peers in AI development.
Bill Gates has opposed the open letter co-signed by AI experts, which called for a pause in the development of AI. Instead, he suggested that identifying the tricky areas of AI development would be better than pausing it.
Gates has strongly supported AI and believes it can help reduce some of the world’s worst inequities. However, he acknowledged that enforcing a pause in AI development would be complicated.