Bill Gates, billionaire philanthropist, co-founder of Microsoft, wrote a 12-page, 6,000-word essay on AI and published it on his personal website last Wednesday. If it didn’t get your attention somehow, it’s worth me sharing a few eye-popping quotes from it. He says, “even under the best circumstances, the transition to this new AI era will be one of the most turbulent times in human history… AI will be either the greatest equalizer ever invented or the worst source of injustice.”
One of Gates’ main points was around critical thinking, which is more important than ever. Gates continued, “In an era of deep fakes and misinformation that can be tailored to you individually, the ability to tell what is true becomes an essential life skill.” As a journalist, that not only gets to the heart of the matter, it underscores for lots of folks that AI could be a nightmare from hell.
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Ironically, last Wednesday in August 1878, Thomas Edison began experimenting with electric light in his laboratory in Menlo Park, NJ. The lightbulb was born a few weeks later.
The next episode in the series of news specials I’m doing for PBS called Breaking the Deadlock is about AI. We’ve got some terrific panelists confronting some powerful, ethical questions on this subject. It’s being taped Monday, September 14th, at the New York Historical in front of a live audience. Fingers crossed… let you know how it goes.