Innovation3 min(s) read
Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, has warned that a potential "AI doomsday" is on the horizon for humanity.
The billionaire said that because of the rise of artificial intelligence in recent years, millions of jobs could be at risk as normal workers could be replaced with robots.
Speaking on Wednesday, he said that "turbulent times" lie ahead for humanity in the coming years - including the threat of a weapon that could devastate our world.
In an essay published on Wednesday, Gates said that AI has now started to evolve at an "uncontrolled" rate and that we, as a society, have passed all the previous warning signs and are barrelling towards a reckoning.
"AI will either be the greatest equalizer ever invented, or the worst source of injustice," Gates wrote. "Even under the best circumstances, the transition to this new AI era will be one of the most turbulent times in human history."
Gates goes on to say that the situation is so dire that many big tech bosses and even global leaders are aware of such risks but "don't have a plan" in place to protect humanity's interests.
"[We] are not confronting the challenges [that AI poses] adequately," he warns.
One of the greatest risks Gates notes in his essay, 'The Turbulent AI Era Is Here. The Choices We Make Are Critical', is the threat to global security from AI systems that can now gather information necessary to make devastating weapons.
"Although AI will lead to lifesaving advances in drugs and vaccines, it will also make it easier to design a deadly new disease," he said. "Autonomous weapons, for example, will make governments even more capable of using deadly force without a human being part of the decision."
Another startling risk is the possibility of the AI takeover of human jobs, something already on people's minds as artificial intelligence becomes more and more integrated into everyday life.
Gates has warned that AI is now capable of stripping jobs from industries, because "it can see, listen, speak, and reason and will eventually do physical work just as smoothly as any human, it will not just affect one sector.
'"AI will take on work in law, customer service, medicine, software, and manufacturing. It will hit these industries rapidly, over the course of a decade rather than a few generations."
One suggestion Gates makes on how to better manage the AI boom is to tax any artificial intelligence bots used in business as employees, rather than just writing them off as a business expense.
