Bill Gates has a stark message about the limitations of AI

With the rise of AI, many people are trying to guess what the future will look like, and Bill Gates has weighed in on the debate.

Just like any new piece of technology there are those that think it will be game changing and others that feel it is a fad that will pass.

Sometimes they are completely on the money, remember Google glass? Didn't think so.

Other times they couldn’t be further from the truth. In 1998, American economist Paul Krugman predicted the internet would simply be a fad and will grow slowly.

Now, with Artificial Intelligence, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has explained his thoughts on AI and its place in future.

In an interview with Dax Shepard on the Armchair Expert podcast, Gates said that AI won’t magically solve problems that humans aren’t already good at.

He explained how he uses AI himself and said: "I'm using it all the time and saying, 'Okay, no, it's not good enough for this — but wow, it is good enough for that.'"

“If it's a problem that humans are not good at dealing with, then present techniques don't create some novel approach,"

He clarified that AI essentially works a lot faster at doing tasks that humans do slowly.

So for certain tasks, artificial intelligence can be a game changer and we have already seen it improving multiple industries across the world, with new programs and algorithms created with the help of AI everyday.

Christophe Viseux / COP28 via Getty Images

However, for things that are difficult to predict or quantify, things like the creative process, human happiness or relationship satisfaction, according to Gates, AI won’t magically solve issues related to this on its own.

This makes sense as humans have always struggled with these things and had variable degrees of success throughout history.

"I actually think in mental counseling AIs will play a role, but boy, we're going to have to be very careful about that," Gates continued.

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"That's going to require a lot of work that has not been done yet."

The tech mogul also argued that many AI programs, well, simply get things wrong and can even stumble with complex math.

"It doesn't know to check its answers," he said.

"A Sudoku puzzle, you have to do a lot of recursive reasoning and it doesn't know to take extra time."

The AI says it 'mistyped' rather than admit it was wrong, Gates added.

"It's so apologetic, and it says it'll try again, but of course it gets it wrong again."

Well, give it time, and I'm sure we can come up with an AI program that perfectly solves sudoku puzzles.

Topics: Artificial Intelligence, Bill Gates, Technology, US News

Gerrard Kaonga

Gerrard is a Journalist at UNILAD and has dived headfirst into covering everything from breaking global stories to trending entertainment news. He has a bachelors in English Literature from Brunel University and has written across a number of different national and international publications. Most notably the Financial Times, Daily Express, Evening Standard and Newsweek.