KUALA LUMPUR: Microsoft co-founder and billionaire Bill Gates predicts the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) technology in the next five years will be transformative for everyone.
In an interview with CNN, the technologist believed that with every new technology comes fear and then new opportunity.
Gates predicted that AI would make everyone's lives easier, specifically pointing to the medical field, where it would help doctors do their paperwork.
"It is part of the job that doctors don't like, but we can make that very efficient," he was quoted as saying.
Gates said the AI transformation was similar a transformative period related to agriculture in the early 1900s.
"It's like agricultural productivity in the 1900s," he said. "Questions were asked about what people were going to do.
"In fact, a lot of new things can be done. A lot of new categories were created, and now we're way better off than when everybody was doing farm work. AI will be like that," he added.
The rise of AI has created fears in people that the technology will eliminate millions of jobs worldwide.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) reported this week that about 40 per cent of jobs around the world could be affected by the rise of AI technology.
Gates said accessing AI for the time being will be done "over the phone or the PC you've connected over the internet connection" since there is no need for "much new hardware."
Microsoft has a multibillion-dollar partnership with OpenAI. And Gates remains one of Microsoft's largest shareholders.
He said the improvements made to OpenAI's ChatGPT-4 are more dramatic now compared to when it was first started.
It can "essentially read and write," thus making it "almost like having a white collar worker to be a tutor, to give health advice, to help write code, and even to help with technical support calls."
"It would be fantastic if we could incorporate that technology into the education and medical sectors," he said.
And this is where his charity foundation, the Gates Foundation, steps in.
"The goal of the Gates Foundation is to make sure that the delay between benefiting people in poor countries versus getting to rich countries will be reduced," he said.
"After all, the shortages of doctors and teachers are way more acute in Africa than it is in the West," he added.
However, the IMF, in its report earlier this week, had a less optimistic view of the situation. The group said that AI would eventually deepen inequality without intervention from politicians.
According to Bloomberg's Billionaires Index, Gates is worth US$140 billion, making him the fourth-richest person on Earth. He would probably still be the richest person if he hadn't committed to giving away all his fortune.
But he is not worried about losing his wealth.
The businessman and his ex-wife, Melinda French Gates, have both pledged to donate the vast majority of their wealth to the Gates Foundation, which they established together 20 years ago, as well as to other philanthropic efforts.
In 2022, Gates announced that the foundation intended to give away US$9 billion annually by 2026.
He said that he's excited that it will have so much impact on the organisations he's giving it to.
Gates said he had more than enough for his own consumption.
"I'm getting myself to go down the list, and I'll be proud when I fall off altogether," he said when asked how his philanthropic works are going.
So far, Gates and his partners, like Warren Buffet, have given away about US$100 billion to his foundation.
At a rate of US$9 billion a year, Gates anticipates that he'll have given away all of his wealth in about 20 years.
