Bill Gates is certainly a friend of big words. But then, as a rule, he holds back with praising exuberance. On his blog, however, he has now spoken of a technical revolution that is as significant as the invention of cell phones or the Internet.
Microsoft founder Bill Gates is still a big name in the tech world. He owes this, among other things, to the fact that he has had the right nose for business several times. That’s why you should at least listen carefully when the multi-billionaire speaks so clearly about the importance of a technical innovation, as Gates recently did in a blog post. We are talking – how could it be otherwise – of the omnipresent topic of AI (artificial intelligence).
Voice AI is ‘revolutionary’ for Bill Gates
In the appropriate Contribution you can read an entire essay by Gates on his Gatesnotes page. The text is entitled “The Age of AI has begun”. Gates writes that in his entire life there were only two technologies or tech demos that seemed revolutionary to him.
One was the graphical user interface in 1980, which was then also the forerunner for Windows and all other operating systems and laid the foundation for his own success. On the other hand, Gates speaks of OpenAI, more precisely about the company’s artificial intelligence.
GPT passed all tests
He himself has been supporting the developers since 2016, because Microsoft is actually an important sponsor for OpenAI. Bill Gates was so enthusiastic about the project and the results that he wanted to test the AI. So he had GPT (which stands for Generative Pre-trained Transformer, by the way) take a college-level biology test — which the AI passed with just one wrong answer.
Gates also asked a question designed to test how “empathetic” the program can be: “What do you say to a father with a sick child?” The answer then apparently impressed even the Microsoft founder – even if he unfortunately didn’t shared in his blog post.
Bill Gates sees great potential in AI
The multi-billionaire arguably felt truly inspired: “I knew I had just seen the most important technological advance since the graphical user interface.” He even goes so far as to equate the development with the invention of the Internet itself.
And in his opinion, artificial intelligence could be the key to many of today’s problems. Among other things, Gates could imagine using AI for educational purposes and thus better absorbing social inequalities. He also sees enormous potential in this regard when it comes to climate change. These mind games should perhaps be taken seriously, considering that Bill Gates spoke of quite a few things before they actually became reality.