AI (artificial intelligence), can it help? Can it hurt? Is it the technological revolution to ferry humanity to a new age… or will dystopian Sci-fi films become our reality? These are questions that we ask all of the time. However, Bill Gates has huge plans and high hopes for AI technology.
YouTuber Arin Maini (MrWhosYourBoss) sat down with Bill Gates and talked about how he believes that AI could change the world. During the interview, we got a pretty detailed picture of his vision of AI going forward.
Right now, we don’t know the true potential of AI technology. While artificial intelligence has been around for quite some time, generative AI is still brand-new to us. Gen AI is the fire, and we’re the cavemen holding the burning stick about to learn its constructive and destructive potential. So, we’re turning to those deep in the tech industry to see what they think about the technology.
Bill Gates has many thoughts on where AI technology can take us in the future. He referred to several key areas where AI could have the biggest impact, and he brings some solid points.
How Bill Gates believes AI could impact the world
So, we know about the potential negative side-effects of AI; job losses, tons of misinformation, and (the worst effect of all) AI-generated images on our Instagram feed. However, there are two sides to every coin, and AI has a ton of potential to help humanity. In an ironic turn of events, it can be there to provide more manpower in places that are lacking; one of those places is Africa.
“The Gates Foundation is all about inequity, including in health and some work in education”, Bill Gates said during the interview, “Who are the innovators who are thinking about tutoring African students or providing Africans healthcare where the shortage of doctors is worse here than anywhere in the world?”
He explained that AI technologies could be extremely helpful in four key areas under three broad umbrella categories; education, farming, and healthcare.
Education
Starting off with education, many of the people reading this have had access to a fair amount of resources in grade school. However, in Africa, that’s not really the case. Many students don’t have proper textbooks or access to enough teachers. In the video, Maini explained that teachers could be so thinly distributed that classes could have up to 100 students per teacher.
This means that the students don’t have the kind of individual attention that they need. Well, it’s possible for AI technology to be students’ personal tutors. Rather than, or along with, being in a class where they have to share the teacher with dozens of other kids, each kid could have access to an AI-generated tutor.
Imagine having an AI that could change and adapt to your learning style. Most learning programs and services have a pre-made curriculum that’s designed to match students’ levels. Well, AI could generate a curriculum based specifically on the child’s needs.
Another issue is that many textbooks just aren’t translated into their specific languages. This means that new and informative textbooks that would otherwise teach them just aren’t accessible. AI could either translate textbooks or create textbooks in their language.
Attention
This all comes down to attention. Many other languages and countries just aren’t getting as much attention as others. Most publishers aren’t translating their textbooks or distributing them to Africa. The impact of this is two-fold. Without proper resources, the students have less of a chance of getting higher education.
This also means that there are fewer students who can go on to become teachers, thus feeding into the lack of teachers. It’s a domino effect that can be dampened over the next several years through AI.
Farming
When it comes to farming, it can be hard to make a living if you don’t have the proper forecasts or insights. One thing that AI does best is gather information from different available sources. We’re talking about news outlets, satellite imagery, and other sources to give concise information about when farmers should plant. They’ll be able to ask AI about when to expect the next disease outbreak to happen (as explained by Maini), and other questions.
This gives farmers a ton of data and power to help them maximize their farming. Right now, many farmers in Africa don’t have proper access to forecasting technology. So, there’s no preparing for harsh weather, there’s only waiting until harsh weather happens and doing damage control.
Healthcare
The thought of AI and healthcare is scary, especially since Gen-AI technology is still rife with inaccurate information and hallucinations. You don’t want to trust your health or the health of someone you love to AI, but it could help in many ways.
Here’s the reality of the situation; they say that time heals all wounds, well time makes the wounds worse sometimes. Millions of people flock to hospitals in more privileged countries and are subjected to wait several hours for attention. In Africa, the wait is much longer, with people waiting several weeks for medical attention. As you can imagine, that’s not ideal in any scenario.
Medical help is something that should NOT be postponed for any amount of time. However, hospitals are severely understaffed in several parts of Africa. It’s so bad that millions of people in Africa actually die each year while just waiting for medical attention.
How it can help
Well, Bill Gates believes that having access to AI chatbots could be an amazing resource for people waiting for medical assistance. Instead of waiting in suspense for information on their condition, people can consult with an AI that’s always there for them. It’s shocking how many conditions can be remedied with tools readily available. It can be as simple as taking in more water or taking a certain OTC medication.
That’s how it can help patients, but it could also help the healthcare workers assisting the patients. AI technology can handle certain tasks for workers. It can approve radiology scans, write notes, and automate other tasks that they would otherwise have to do by hand. The hospitals are severely short on manpower, and expediting those tasks can help them make it to more patients.
The thing here is time. Medicine is time-sensitive, and the amount of time that it takes for medical workers to get to patients is crucial. AI technology could help expedite medical procedures and tasks so that more patients can have medical attention.
But, what about the potential downsides?
Benefits on paper are different from benefits in real life, and that’s especially true when it comes to AI technology. This tech is not without its major flaws, and these flaws could mean the difference between life and death.
Hallucinations
Right now, all AI companies are trying to tackle the issue of AI hallucinations. This is when an AI seemingly creates facts out of thin air rather than using the information stored in its “brain”. Imagine asking a person a science question and rather, than consulting a science textbook, they try to recall the answer from memory only to get it wrong.
Well, AI could hallucinate on anything, and you don’t want it to hallucinate on a patient’s information. You need every bit of information to be accurate when you’re talking about a patient. This is something that will need to be solved before it can be deployed en masse.
Bias
AI chatbots need to be trained using a ton of data from across the internet. However, where does most of that data come from? The mass majority of it comes from countries like the USA, The UK, and other countries with more internet access. However, Africa is just an 11.73 million mi² blind spot for AI. Not much information in Africa is used to train AI. This means that chatbots like ChatGPT, Bard, Anthropic AI, and others don’t know many of the intricate details about the continent.
What are the major diseases that happen there? That’s one question that could mean life or death. As mentioned in the video, one person in Africa told ChatGPT for a diagnosis of a condition. He had symptoms including fever, dizziness, and a headache. The chatbot replied they had the flu; that was wrong. The thing is that the flu is more prevalent in the US, so ChatGPT automatically assumed that it was the flu. However, the person was suffering from tuberculosis, a condition not as prevalent in the States.
So, what’s the plan?
Let’s revisit this question, “Who are the innovators who are thinking about tutoring African students or providing Africans healthcare where the shortage of doctors is worse here than anywhere in the world?” Well, philanthropy will find them. The Gates Foundation plans on funding non-profit and for-profit organizations to help bring AI innovations to Africa. There’s a ton of potential for the technology to have a positive influence on Africa and other equally underprivileged places in the world.
Bill Gates’s grand plan is for AI technology to make a positive change. With the hard work and dedication of people like him, AI WILL be the technology to ferry us into a new age.
