2024-09-08 03:26:08
Bill Gates didn’t see the conspiracy theories coming. The Microsoft co-founder built one of the largest fortunes the world has ever seen thanks to his visionary approach to the personal computer revolution, but he never predicted that so many people would end up using those machines that he was branded a shape-shifting “baby-drinking lizard” who puts microchips in vaccines and plans pandemics for profit. “I thought the Internet, with the magic of software, would make us all so much more factual,” he laments, with a wry smile beneath his black-framed glasses. “The idea that we would wallow in misinformation… boggles my mind.”
Not that he’s complaining. “I don’t care how I’m perceived,” “This is a very important thing,” the 68-year-old says via video call (Microsoft Teams, naturally) from his office in Kirkland, on the shores of Lake Washington, across from Seattle. So even when “a woman came up to me and screamed that I had implanted things in her, that I was tracking her,” he took it in stride. “My life is fantastic,” he says, “I’m the luckiest person alive, in terms of the work I get to do.”
The misinformation on the internet Gates is concerned not because of his personal reputation, but because he is the only problem for which he has no answer. In his new documentary series five chapters for Netflix, What’s Next? El futuro con Bill Gates, that goes up to the platform September 18, The billionaire shares his optimistic vision of a world where scientific innovation reverses climate change and eradicates deadly diseases, while advances in Artificial Intelligence leave us all free to enjoy perpetual leisure time. These are the conspiracy theories The ones that puzzle him. “I feel like we’ve passed it on to the younger generations,” he says. “Both to confront and to figure out: ‘Well, where is the line between freedom of expression and incitement to violence, or harassment, or just plain stupidity?'” craziness “What makes people not follow health advice?”
Gates is well aware that one of the reasons the grotesque and outlandish rumors about him capture the public imagination is because, as he himself says on the show, “the extreme wealth brings with it questions about your motives.” In 2000 he left his position as CEO of Microsoft to create the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with his then wife, with the aim of donating “a lot of money to save a lot of lives”, but he remains one of the richest people in the world (seventh on the list Forbes in real time, with an estimated net worth of 138 billion dollars).
I ask him directly if he can assure me that billionaires have the interests of the rest of us in mind. His answer does not exactly reassure me. “I am a firm believer in the wealth tax and in more progressive taxation,” he says. “I don’t think that, in general, we should let families whose great-grandfather, by luck and skill, accumulated a lot of wealth, have the same wealth.” economic or political power that this entails.”
He’s not a big supporter of the billionaire class. Do you agree that he’s too rich? “If I designed the tax system, I would be tens of billions of dollars poorer than I am,” He nods. “The tax system could be made more progressive without significantly damaging the incentive to do fantastic things.”
Rather than voluntarily pay more taxes, Gates has poured his wealth into projects he believes can raise global living standards. In one episode of the new show, he introduces some of the projects he is funding to try to stem the tide of global warming. climate crisis, such as investing in new types of nuclear reactors and finding ways to make cement that does not emit CO2.
These types of innovations are essential Because, as he explains, most harmful carbon emissions come from generating electricity and manufacturing products like steel and concrete. I tell Gates that his analysis strikes me as a bit discouragingsimply because it reminds me how much my efforts to fly less frequently or waste less food pale next to the enormous structural changes that must occur if society is to reach net zero emissions.
“First, let me say that individual actions do add up,” Gates replies. “Whether it’s acts of kindness or creating demand for organic products, Everyone who buys food that is made with less CO2 helps drive volume, which helps innovation eventually outstrip dirty material. So whether it’s electric cars or heat pumps or sustainable jet fuel, I wouldn’t rule it out entirely.”
So I ask him if he sympathizes with activists who feel compelled to block roads or throw paint on famous works of art to get politicians’ attention. “I agree that sometimes the extreme tactics “They are very helpful in keeping this issue on the agenda,” he says, “because the big, big pain of climate change is so far in the future…” I interrupt: “We are certainly already suffering the effects of climate change.” Gates shakes his head. “Except in countries along the equator, the massive effects on GDP will not happen in the short term, but over time,” he says, adding that he has no time for climate lies. “There is no doubt that it is super important and that we are underinvesting in it, but the idea that we should despair, that we should almost give up, does not help the cause either.”
As for the much vaunted benefits of Artificial Intelligence, I confess that I find it difficult to share your opinion. optimism. When you describe a future in which humans enjoy much more leisure, it’s easy to imagine CEOs instigating mass layoffs and cheerfully telling us to go and enjoy our free time. Artificial Intelligence can make businesses more efficient, but that does not improve necessarily the fate of those of us who have to work to earn a living.
“Well, work weeks have gotten shorter,” Gates says confidently, as I make a mental note to let my boss know I’ll be finishing early. But he understands. “I’ll admit that saying that through government policies we’ll take this extra productivity and we will distribute it appropriately, at a time when trust in government to do basic things is so low… statements like that make people raise their eyebrows, but there is no other answer.”
Gates argues that, as with climate change mitigation, we will need to Governments should rein in corporations and restructure society to deal with the myriad effects of AI. “As society becomes more productive, to ensure that the benefits are shared among many, not just in rich countries but across the world, you need government involvement,” he says. “Neither philanthropy nor well-meaning individuals can do it alone. So it’s about electing politicians who see the benefits of AI and think about what that means for the tax structure, and having the support of the government.” economists who really study it. I think we’re just getting started, and I think we’ve got 10 to 20 years before the productivity gains are so huge that you really have to reshape tax and workweek policies in a profound way.”
According to Gates, the coming AI revolution will reshape society more profoundly than any previous advancement in human history. “This technology has no limits,” “At least with tractors we knew we would have fewer farmers, but there are many other human needs. At that time we didn’t realize, as we got richer, that we would have fewer farmers,” he says. “how many restaurants or psychiatrists would we end up need?”
Compared to artificial intelligence, Gates says the personal computer revolution was “somewhat uncontroversial.” When Microsoft was founded in 1975, its idea of putting a computer in every home sounded like a pipe dream. Now there’s one in every pocket. Gates helped transform the world during that period, but he says the philanthropic work he’s focused on over the past 16 years has been “more profound.”
“If I hadn’t been involved in the personal computer revolution, it would have happened,” he says. “Would it have happened a year later or something? Who knows? But not with much of a delay, whereas as far as malaria, malnutrition, female contraceptives are concerned, unfortunately, it’s a strange commentary on the world, I don’t think even a decade later those things would necessarily have happened. It’s hard to make the ‘what if’, But if you analyze the world with me and without me, and subtract the two, Philanthropy is something much more significant in terms of making things that are geared towards the equity happen dramatically sooner than they would have otherwise.”
Despite what all those macabre online conspiracies would have you believe about Gates, Its impact on global health has been enormously significant. and undeniably admirable. In 2000, 10 million children under the age of five died each year. Today, that figure has reduced to fewer than 4.6 million deaths annually. The work of the Gates Foundation has dramatically reduced the number of people dying from preventable diseases such as malaria, polio and diarrhea, although Gates insists he is not doing so out of personal acclaim. “The dream is to end these diseases “so that no one remembers what malaria or polio were like,” he says. “That is the ultimate success.”
As remarkable as Gates’ achievements in global health have been, and as hopeful as we all are that his investments can have a similar positive impact on climate change, the question arises as to what will happen when he’s gone. The Gates Foundation is due to be dissolved 20 years after his death, and I point out to him that the new generation of billionaires who have surpassed him on the list Forbesas Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos y Mark Zuckerberg, They seem much less interested to spend their vast fortunes on malaria nets, polio vaccines or climate solutions.
Gates says he is trying to promote philanthropy among the ultra-rich, but acknowledges that it is not a long-term solution. “The big work still has to be done by the government,” he says. “Philanthropy is no substitute for government. Making sure everyone has education, food and shelter – it’s the government that’s going to create that safety net.”
That’s the funny thing about Bill Gates’ optimistic vision of the future: It requires taking a lot of power out of the hands of billionaires like Bill Gates.
* Of The Independent from Great Britain. Special for Page/12.
‘What’s Next? The Future with Bill Gates’ is on Netflix from 18 September