Artificial Intelligence is growing at a pace that almost no one could have predicted. Since its inception it has surprised users with the amount of things it can do, but we are nowhere near close to tapping its full potential and experts believe that in no time at all it will be almost unrecognizable and intertwined with society in a way we cannot predict.
One of those experts is none other than Bill Gates, who has been asked in numerous occasions about his take on this new form of technology. On Jimmy Fallon’s comedy show he explained that he believes that, “Over the next decade, advances in artificial intelligence will mean that humans will no longer be needed “for most things” in the world”, which could be seen as a discouraging take, except he believes that we will replace all the time and effort we put into work with other more leisurely endeavors.
A different conversation with Harvard University professor and happiness expert Arthur Brooks he again gave his take, expressing Artificial Intelligence powered technologies will become accessible to everyone and touch nearly every aspect of our lives, from improved medicines and diagnoses to widely available AI tutors and virtual assistants. “It’s very profound and even a little bit scary — because it’s happening very quickly, and there is no upper bound.”
The impact of Artificial Intelligence in the future
While his take seems very optimistic, and contradicting one of the biggest tech geniuses of the past century seems counterintuitive, we also need to remember that most technological advancements that were going to help humans work less and live more have not gone that way at all. In fact, many experts thirty years ago believed that computers and technology would help set us up for a four day work week, which remains a pipe dream for the majority of the population.
The future that Bill Gates imagines is fairly idealistic, with advancements in education and medicine helped by Artificial Intelligence that will propel society to the next level, but he is not the only one with opinions and others have a lot more tempered comments to make when it comes to these advancements.
Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman is one of the dissenting voices, and he posits that, based on the experiences until now, continued technological advancements over the next several years will change what most jobs look like across nearly every industry, and have a “hugely destabilizing” impact on the workforce. He expressed his belief that “These tools will only temporarily augment human intelligence. They will make us smarter and more efficient for a time, and will unlock enormous amounts of economic growth, but they are fundamentally labor replacing.”
Having said that, Bill Gates may be right in that Artificial Intelligence will never be able to replace certain parts of the human experience, for example, people probably will not want to see machines playing baseball. “There will be some things we reserve for ourselves. But in terms of making things and moving things and growing food, over time those will be basically solved problems,” Gates said.
His optimism is also cautious, as he is also aware that humans do not always make the right choices with technology, but the main reason why we strive to keep advancing is to improve our lives, and that is what we need to continue to focus on. The drive to do better will inevitably improve our conditions as long as we all fight for it to be our common goal. This is why we need to be very careful about future leadership and regulations we put in place, to ensure that all this potential does not become another tool to exploit people.