Microsoft co-founder, billionaire and now philanthropist Bill Gates considers artificial intelligence to be a very unusual and controversial technology that can both help and harm humanity. At a conference at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, Gates drew an analogy between artificial intelligence and nuclear weapons. In his opinion, people should develop AI technologies in more peaceful areas, for example, in education and medicine, otherwise we may all face trouble.
“There have not yet been so many technologies in the world that are both promising and very dangerous,” Gates said at the conference, citing atomic energy as one positive example of a useful technology that was soon overshadowed by the emergence of nuclear weapons. At the same time, he lamented that in those areas where AI could bring real benefit to humanity, there are very few real results so far. In his opinion, medicine and education are the areas where AI could really help people.
The rapid pace of development of artificial intelligence, supported by the technology of neural networks that mimic the work of the human brain, has already revolutionized the technological field. Now AI and neural networks are used everywhere: from biometric systems for identifying people to anti-spam filters for email. But Gates doesn't want the benefits of artificial intelligence to be enjoyed only by tech giants such as Amazon, Google and Facebook.
As one of the positive examples of the use of AI in medicine, he cited the work of the private American biotechnology company 23andMe, which deals with the analysis of genetic data. According to Gates, the use of artificial intelligence has allowed to determine the connection between the lack of selenium (an essential trace element for life) in the body and the incidence of preterm birth in women in Africa. Over the next 18 months, researchers will find out if a therapy program adopted on this issue can help the projected 20,000 African women.
When it comes to education, Gates hopes that AI can help drive better learning approaches.
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Speaking at the conference, Gates also noted that the United States has almost lost its technological gap from other countries in the development of artificial intelligence technologies:
In his opinion, in 10 years the United States may take the role of catch-up, since leading scientific research aimed at understanding, for example, the same advantages of using AI in the fields of biology and medicine will no longer be conducted in America.
He also noted that today's internal mechanisms of work of AI systems are poorly understood.
Nikolay Khizhnyak