La Voz de Galicia – October 18, 2024 →
This week I watched on Netflix the documentary series about Bill Gates called “What’s next? The Future with Bill Gates”, directed by Morgan Neville, where he explores, among other things, technological advances in the fields of artificial intelligence, disinformation, inequality, and climate change, and I couldn’t stop thinking about that video circulating on social media featuring Bill Gates and host David Letterman. In 1995, Letterman interviewed Gates on his Late Show for the launch of a book, and at one point during the interview, he asks him about ‘this thing called the internet,’ to which Gates responds by saying that in the future, we’ll be able to publish our own information, receive electronic mail… and Letterman, playing the role of the skeptical interviewer, laughs and continues joking about the usefulness of the internet and the idea that in the future, there will be a computer on every desk in every home… In that 1995 video, Gates ends by mentioning that computers are tools, but that maybe in the future, they might be capable of thinking, and he acknowledges that it’s a bit scary to think about that.
Today, thirty years after that interview, watching Gates’ documentary series, especially the episodes on artificial intelligence and disinformation, I reflect on how fast technology is advancing and how unprepared we are as a society to handle it safely. I wanted to listen to Gates as Letterman did in 1995, with disbelief, so I could question him, but we no longer have time for that, because it seems that in AI, there are no limits (unless we set them ourselves).
So, all that’s left is to prepare for what’s coming and to ask ourselves, with fear, who will have the power to regulate it…
