Bill Gates issues new warning over AI doomsday scenario that has huge threat to humanity
Bill Gates thinks AI will 'either be the greatest equaliser ever invented, or the worst source of injustice'.
The billionaire software developer, 70, has raised the alarm on AI before, warning that only three jobs will survive the technology invasion on the job market.
It’s especially worrying given that the number of vacancies in the UK is approaching levels not seen since the pandemic.
“Jobs in sales and customer support (online and over the phone), software engineering, and paralegal work may be among the first affected, but the disruption will reach much further as AI takes on tasks that today still require trained workers: things like assessing loan applications, doing data analysis, and even triaging patients,” he writes on Gates Notes.
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“We have to think now about how to reduce job losses so that everyone can share in the prosperity that AI creates. Waiting until people are already displaced or underemployed will be too late.”
AI doomsday scenario
In his latest essay, however, the Microsoft co-founder thinks AI will help create a devastating 'bioterrorism weapon' capable of threatening humanity.
“Long before AI entered the mainstream, there was information online about how to create weapons like bombs, bioweapons, even computer viruses,” the philanthropist, worth approximately $109.3 billion, explains.
“AI will make it much easier to not only get this information but act on it. Even criminals with very limited skills will be able to target victims at every scale: individuals, companies, and governments.”
It will be ‘easier to design a deadly new disease’
Gates says ‘AI capabilities are starting to be used for cyberattacks’ and that the smartest people he knows are ‘scared’.
“After all, the same AI model that can find a flaw in software so a company can fix it can also help a criminal exploit it. The resources needed to make an attack are going down significantly and we haven’t been able to separate those abilities from benign usage," he adds.
“Think about the infrastructure that will be vulnerable: hospitals, financial institutions, water systems, power grids, systems for managing government benefits. When these institutions are attacked, it’s the patients, customers, and benefits recipients who stand to lose.
“The same goes for bioterrorism. Although AI will lead to lifesaving advances in drugs and vaccines, it will also make it easier to design a deadly new disease. Again, the positive capabilities are hard to separate from the dangerous ones. This is a global problem.”
We need ‘a robot tax’
Gates is calling for new national and international institutions to manage AI, issue stronger support for displaced workers, as well as taxes on AI tokens and robots to help fund retraining and social protections.
“A tax would slow the rush away from human labor a little and raise money for retraining and a stronger safety net. It would need to be targeted so it does not slow down the purely beneficial uses of AI, like making medicine and education cheaper,” he adds.
“Critics of this idea point out that it’s not optimally efficient in an economic sense, but they’re not considering the broader value of work for individuals and society. And with all the accelerated innovation we will have, we’ll be able to afford a little inefficiency as the price for keeping people employed.
“I proposed a robot tax years ago and most of the reaction was that it was a strange idea. I’m still a big proponent of it. Although it is not the whole solution to the threat of AI, it is part of a wise response.”
Topics: Bill Gates, AI, Technology, Jobs
Anish Vij