Bill Gates talks in an interview about AI and climate change. When asked how bad misinformation is, he explains that people are not much better.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is now being used in many areas. However, AI can also spread incorrect information. The well-known English magazine “The Verge” recently wanted to know from Microsoft founder Bill Gates how he feels about misinformation from AI. And he has a simple answer to this.
“People don’t need AI to type crazy things”
What was he asked? In a conversation with the English magazine “The Verge”, Gates was asked how he feels about generative AI misinformation and the climate. This also included the collaboration between Microsoft and OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, which Microsoft has already invested a lot of money in.
The question specifically was how Gates would feel “if generative AI tools that Microsoft has worked on had a significant impact on misinformation, on issues like climate change and global health?”
This is what Bill Gates replied: The Microsoft founder explained:
I believe that AI is, on the whole, very beneficial for work in the climate sector. People can input misinformation into a word processing program. They don’t need AI to type crazy things. So I’m not sure whether AI, aside from creating fakes, really changes the balance.
I would even say that the role of AI in reducing misinformation can be a positive one when it comes to seeing what’s happening in a super-efficient way.
While AI would indeed make mistakes and spread false information, people could do that just as well. Moreover, AI is much more efficient at catching and reducing errors than people ever could. Bill Gates adds:
Misinformation is the point where I believe the younger generation needs to find the balance between free speech and people’s misinformation.
The strong use of AI remains controversial
In both the private and working worlds, the use of AI is considered controversial. It is not uncommon for companies to replace their employees with AI. A good AI can take on a lot of work and replace individuals, which is likely the point that Bill Gates is indirectly addressing here: AI makes the same mistakes as people, but it can also find errors faster.
Companies then like to refer to “cost optimization” when it comes to layoffs. Time and again, people report that they are losing their jobs to an AI or are receiving fewer and fewer orders because artificial intelligence takes over these tasks.
The significance and support of AI have been intensely debated for some time now. In one case, researchers from an institute wanted to prove how bad AI can really get. The researchers let the AI develop new weapons, and it surprisingly succeeded remarkably well: Researchers want to prove what an evil AI can do – It designs 40,000 chemical weapons in 6 hours
