The social role of technology – Bill Gates' opinion

Speaking at the Misk Global Forum in Riyadh, Bill Gates shared his thoughts on the social role of technology and the need to modernize the education system. The billionaire believes that technology can be...

Speaking at the Misk Global Forum in Riyadh, Bill Gates shared his thoughts on the social role of technology and the need to modernize the education system.

The billionaire believes that technology can be used to focus the attention on the gap between the rich and the poor.

Gates stressed the vital role of research in the field of artificial intelligence. He also drew attention to the fact that, together with technical progress in the near future, AI can bring serious problems.

The entrepreneur is concerned about the possibility of using intelligent machines for purposes related to the invasion of privacy, as well as for political interests.

The founder of Microsoft sees a separate problem in the fact that poor people have fewer opportunities to learn modern technology. If you don't make education in the field of AI as accessible as possible it will become elitist. In the end, this will hamper society in both social and technological development. The benefits of using it will be lost if technology doesn't develop properly and with limited availability.

Even with all the pitfalls, Bill Gates is still confident that the advantages of AI will help solve all of the problems in today's "world of shortage."

Human resources that will be freed up as a result of automation can be directed to the development of the humanitarian demands of society. In order to solve the problems associated with job cuts and inequalities, Gates proposed to introduce a tax on robots which should work similarly to an income tax.

It is interesting to note that Microsoft, created by Gates, largely adheres to a different policy. They have been repeatedly accused of unauthorized collection of information about users, as well as in the monopolization of the market. For several years they even led an advertising campaign against competitive open source software.