Bill Gates has shared his thoughts on the current AI wave led by ChatGPT. He writes that there has only been one other demonstration of technology that has struck him as revolutionary in his lifetime – when he was first introduced to a graphical user interface in 1980. The graphical user interface went on to revolutionise computing, led to Microsoft Windows, and is how you’re reading this email today.
The development of AI is as fundamental as the creation of the microprocessor, the personal computer, the Internet, and the mobile phone. It will change the way people work, learn, travel, get health care, and communicate with each other. Entire industries will reorient around it. Businesses will distinguish themselves by how well they use it.
Bill Gates
Gates believes that over time, our main way of controlling a computer will not be by pointing and clicking or by tapping on menus and dialogue boxes. Instead, we’ll be writing instructions for the computer to execute (which ironically, feels like a step back to when you’d write instructions in code for a computer to execute – it is just that now we’ll be writing them in plain language). He also sees the opportunity for every person on earth to have a “personal agent” aka a digital EA.
In this article, Gates then zooms in on two specific industries – health and education – and outlines how he believes AI can revolutionise them both.
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