Bill Gates has warned that the rapid development of artificial intelligence could enable the creation of new bioweapons, bombs, and pandemics, while also destroying jobs on a massive scale. In a 6,000-word essay titled 'The Turbulent AI Era Is Here – The Choices We Make Are Critical', the former Microsoft boss said AI is advancing far faster than humans can control.
AI as a source of injustice
'AI will either be the greatest equaliser ever invented, or the worst source of injustice,' Mr Gates wrote. 'Even under the best circumstances, the transition to this new AI era will be one of the most turbulent times in human history.'
He claimed AI has all the tools it needs to create bombs, bioweapons, and computer viruses, and could become capable of using that information without human permission. 'Although AI will lead to lifesaving advances in drugs and vaccines, it will also make it easier to design a deadly new disease,' he said. 'Again, the positive capabilities are hard to separate from the dangerous ones. This is a global problem.'
Concentration of power
'The risks I've just mentioned are all about how AI will empower bad actors who have relatively little power now. The same tools will also concentrate power in places where it already exists,' Mr Gates added. 'Autonomous weapons, for example, will make governments even more capable of using deadly force without a human being part of the decision. Monitoring and manipulating public opinion will be easier and cheaper, and more effective too.'
'Because it can see, listen, speak, and reason and will eventually do physical work just as smoothly as any human, it will not just affect one sector,' the tech leader said. 'AI will take on work in law, customer service, medicine, software, and manufacturing. It will hit these industries rapidly, over the course of a decade rather than a few generations.'
Human reserved jobs
He urged the adoption of 'human reserved' jobs protected from AI, fearing huge numbers of jobs vanishing forever. 'I like the phrase human reserved because it makes me think of nature reserves – places where we could put buildings and roads, but we choose not to because the loss would be too great,' he said.
He referred to the doctors who cared for his father as he died of Alzheimer's disease six years ago. 'Something in the care they gave my dad was irreplaceably human, no robot could or should have done it,' he said. 'Imagine a robot giving you the awful news that you have an incurable disease. There's no technical reason why it couldn't. Yet it shouldn't.'
After publishing the blog, he told Semafor he had changed his mind on the benefits of AI to the human race. 'I am in a state of shock that I'm sort of the first one saying, "This is crazy. This is insane,"' he said. 'I'm just deafened by the silence.'
Gates had been a proponent of the positives AI can bring to medicine and global food production. His comments come amid ongoing scrutiny of his association with the late financier Jeffrey Epstein, which he has previously described as a mistake.
