Why Is Bill Gates the Doomer on Artificial Intelligence?

One panelist says Bill Gates was at the center of the last contagion and is now trying to insert himself into the middle of the reaction to artificial intelligence. He calls Gates the flag-carrying doomer, chasing the same command and control from a global hierarchy Gates had the first time around.

Bill Gates deserves enormous credit for creating Microsoft and for what he did for computing. Since the foundation, the panelist says, Gates has been very focused on his own power and on the idea that he is smarter and more capable of allocating progress for the world. Gates tried to do that with the Gates Foundation and with the Giving Pledge. Both have been undone, and now he is trying to do it again on artificial intelligence. The panelist notes a recent Gates line: artificial intelligence is certainly powerful enough to drive events that cause a billion deaths. Gates also called artificial intelligence the most dangerous thing that humans have ever gone near.

Asked what motivates Gates, one panelist says he absolutely wants to be relevant. Anybody can say artificial intelligence is going to kill us and land on every major news station and every newspaper. It is the easiest thing to do in the world.