Bill Gates Shares His Views on the Pause of AI Development

Bill Gates shares his views on the pause of AI development, saying it will not solve the challenges

Microsoft co-founder, Bill Gates believes that the temporary pause of AI development will not “solve the challenges.” In Bill’s first talk about technology’s future, he commented that Artificial Intelligence development should be halted. Bill Gates wonders how Elon Musk's and others call for a six-month moratorium on AI development will be implemented globally.

Gates told Reuters in an interview stated that he doesn’t understand how a six-month moratorium on developing powerful AI systems could work globally, in his first public comments since Tesla CEO Elon Musk and more than 1,000 tech leaders and innovators signed a letter calling for a six-month moratorium on developing powerful AI systems. That open letter demanded an immediate halt to the development of systems “more powerful” than OpenAI’s new GPT-4, which can hold human-like conversations, compose songs, and summarize lengthy documents.

The open letter's signatories, which included Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, warned that no one “understands, predicts, or reliably controls” the powerful new tools developed in AI labs. They advocated for the development and implementation of safety protocols and for AI developers to collaborate with policymakers to create governance systems. “I don’t think putting one group on hold solves the problems,” Gates said. Microsoft has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI, the lab that created ChatGPT. While currently focusing on the philanthropic Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Gates has been a vocal supporter of AI, describing it as “as revolutionary as the Internet or mobile phones.” In a blog titled “The Age of AI has Begun,” published a day before the open letter on March 21, Bill stated that he believes AI should be used to help reduce some of the world’s worst inequities. He also stated in the interview that any pause would be difficult to implement.