“This technology… will reach superhuman levels.”
“You’re not going to completely put the genie back in the bottle, and yet that means that, you know, somebody with negative intent will be empowered in a new way.”
Bill Gates: “The big Frontier is not so much scaling we have you know probably two more turns of the crank on scaling where by accessing video data and getting very good at synthetic data that we can scale up probably you know two more times that’s not the most interesting Dimension the most interesting Dimension is is what I call metacognition where understanding how to think about a problem in a broad sense and step back uh and say okay how important is this answer answer uh how could I check my answer you know what external tools would help me with this the overall cognitive strategy is so trivial today that you know it’s just generating through constant computation each token in sequence and it’s mind-blowing that that works at all uh it does not step back like a human and think okay I’m going to write this paper and here’s what I want to cover here’s okay I’ll put some facts in here’s what I want to do for the summary and so you see this limitation when you have a problem like uh various math things like a Sudoku puzzle where just generating that upper leftand uh thing first it causes it to be wrong on anything above a certain complexity so we’re get we’re going to get the scaling benefits but at the same time the various actions to change the the underlying reasoning algorithm from the trivial that we have today to more humanlike metacognition that’s the big Frontier that uh it’s a little hard to predict how quickly that’ll happen you know I’ve seen that we will make progress on that next year but we won’t completely solve it uh for some time after that so your you know your Genius will get to be more predictable now in certain domains comined domains we are getting to the point of being able to show extreme accuracy on some of the math or even some of the health type domains but the open-ended thing will require General breakthroughs on on metacognition.” (21:20)
Bill Gates: “In this Mania period where somebody literally raised $6 billion dollars in cash for a company, and many others raised hundreds of millions… there’s never been as much Capital going into a new category, you could even say a new Mania category, I mean this makes the internet or the early Auto industry Mania look quite small.” (44:00)
Bill Gates: “You can’t expect the private sector to walk away from Market driven opportunity unless the government decides what the rules are. So this is, although the private sector should help educate government, work with government, the governments will have to play a big role here.” (48:30)
Bill Gates: “Making AI good, we’ll make that the the fourth [memoir] volume.” (56:30)
Bill Gates discusses the future of AI and how it’s closer than you think. Learn about his thoughts on superhuman AI and advancements in technology. Bill Gates has played a leading role in every major tech development over the last half-century, and he’s got a pretty good track record when it comes to forecasting the future. Back in 1980, he predicted that one day there’d be a computer on every desk; today on the show, he says there will soon be an AI agent in every ear. In this episode of the Next Big Idea podcast, host Rufus Griscom and Bill Gates are joined by Andy Sack and Adam Brotman, co-authors of an exciting new book called “AI First.” Together, they consider AI’s impact on healthcare, education, productivity, and business. They dig into the technology’s risks. And they explore its potential to cure diseases, enhance creativity, and usher in a world of abundance.
Key moments: 00:05 *🌐 Bill Gates discusses AI’s transformative potential in revolutionizing technology.* 02:21 *🧠 Superintelligence is inevitable and marks a significant advancement in AI technology.* 09:23 *📱 Future AI may integrate deeply as cognitive assistants in personal and professional life.* 14:04 *🎓 AI’s metacognitive advancements could revolutionize problem-solving capabilities.* 21:13 *🔄 AI’s next frontier lies in developing human-like metacognition for sophisticated problem-solving.* 27:59 *🧠 AI advancements empower both good and malicious intents, posing new security challenges.* 28:57 *🌍 Rapid AI development raises questions about controlling its global application.* 33:31 *🚀 Productivity enhancements from AI can significantly improve efficiency across industries.* 35:49 *💬 AI’s future applications in consumer and industrial sectors are subjects of ongoing experimentation.* 46:10 *🌐 AI democratization could level the economic playing field, enhancing service quality and reducing costs.* 51:46 *🤖 AI plays a role in mitigating misinformation and bridging societal divides through enhanced understanding.* Made with HARPA AI