In a recent media interview, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said he was excited about the AI chatbot ChatGPT and the many accomplishments in AI over the last year. He also offered three suggestions for potential uses for ChatGPT: as a math tutor, as a medical consultant for some Africans who lack medical care, and as a poet like Shakespeare.
Such AI could become math tutors, Bill Gates said, helping students enhance their learning. They could also act as medical advisers, helping to provide medical advice to some Africans who have not usually seen a doctor in their lives. Currently, there aren’t enough white-collar workers to pursue such “worthy causes,” and AI could help meet those needs.
In addition to these two uses, Bill Gates mentioned his favorite “fun things” to do with ChatGPT, including writing poetry with his friends, although his main reason for trying ChatGPT was “for more serious purposes. Bill Gates said, “The fact that you can command ChatGPT to ‘write poetry like Shakespeare,’ and it does, is really interesting that the AI has gotten creative.” He also added that after he read the poems ChatGPT wrote, he admitted that they couldn’t write them himself.
Although Bill Gates leaves the Microsoft board in 2020, he said he still spends time discussing the development and potential of AI with the tech giant’s product teams. Microsoft recently announced a multibillion-dollar investment in ChatGPT developer OpenAI, an investment that reportedly could eventually reach $10 billion. This comes after Microsoft has already made other investments in OpenAI in 2019 and 2021, respectively.
Bill Gates said he has been interested in AI since he started learning about ChatGPT, saying it has the same historical significance as the birth of the personal computer and the Internet. In an interview, he said, “The ability of computers to see, hear and write is a goal that the entire industry has been pursuing for a long time.”
Although impressed with the poem ChatGPT wrote, Bill Gates called it “really imperfect” and “not very intuitive. He also said he has seen ChatGPT make mistakes in answering math problems.
AI will be controversial, but it will be the ‘hottest topic of 2023,’ and it has the power to change the job market, but it could also get out of hand or go in the wrong direction,” Bill Gates acknowledged. “
