Welcome back. First on CBS Mornings, the Gates Foundation is announcing a new coalition to make sure people around the world can use artificial intelligence. It brings together AI companies and other organizations to help more than three billion people use the technology in their own language and voice within five years. Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, and more have signed on to the commitment. This comes as warnings about the potential risks of AI are growing. Bill Gates himself has warned about everything from the prospect of job losses to bioterrorism. He's calling for an unprecedented global response to deal with the rise of AI. The Microsoft co-founder and Gates Foundation chair joins us now. Bill, good morning. Good to see you.
Good morning. Great to be here.
Good to see you. I want to talk about your new announcement and coalition in just a moment, but first I want to talk about what has been this national and world global debate about the promise of AI and also some of the concerns. And our own Jolene Kent just recently sat down with the head of Nvidia, Jensen Huang. I want to just play a little bit of what he said and get your reaction.
You know, the industry that I serve, that I'm part of, the technology industry is absolutely one of our national treasures. We are going to go as fast as we can, but we would never ever and never should ship products before they're ready, deliver products that are unsafe, and nobody's expecting us to do that, but everybody's expecting us to succeed and help America be as prosperous as possible.
So, Bill, you know, obviously he's doing very, very well. But you raised some really interesting questions in a 6,000-word essay that you wrote about this. Should we be going as fast as we can?
Well, the key I wouldn't say is necessarily the speed, although we are moving at a great rate. What we need to do is minimize these risks, the bad stuff, as you said, bioterrorism, job loss, and many of the good things like how should it be used in education or health. Those are very regulated areas and we won't get the good stuff very quickly unless we also engage with that. So the industry is concerned about those negative things. It's kind of unusual. You have the industry speaking out and most of society is still not aware of how quickly it's moving and that this technology is not like other technologies. Any analogy to, hey, that last one was okay. AI is almost an evolutionary event.
I mean, you talk about AI being either the greatest equalizer ever invented, which I know you're pushing to make that the case, or the worst source of injustice, and I think that's what drives Americans' fears. It's also powerful to hear you say that people are paying attention.
Yeah. You know, I felt I had to speak up. I mean, most of my voice is about helping the poorest in the world through the Gates Foundation, but because I saw the super rapid advance and I saw very little response from outside the industry, you know, it's mostly this guy in the industry said that, that guy in the industry said that. Well, we need, you know, all the professors and the think tanks and the politicians to get what does it mean to minimize the bad, even if it means a little bit going a little bit slower. Still very fast. And then what about the good? You know, in education, is it about cheating or is it about improving your curiosity? It could be either one.
But Bill, how can we get politicians to speak up when I don't even think they understand that they don't understand this space? So we're relying on the tech giants to sort of put it out there about how bad it is or how concerned we should be. I think it's hard to expect Congress to do something when they don't really understand how this all works.
Well, they should start to understand. They should be using it in their work. I mean, that's the way to really appreciate and individually get some benefit from it. But the democracy doesn't work unless all of society is drawn into this discussion. You know, teachers, professors. I mean, I almost don't know what it means to be a professor of economics today unless you're thinking about this AI disruption. And I'm just not seeing that. And yes, it's not that awareness and thinking through the pluses and minuses. Unless we accelerate that, it'll come far too slow.
You said that China and the US should cooperate together when it comes to AI. How can we do that when both sides want to beat the crap out of the other? How can they cooperate when it comes to AI?
Well, it's very clear that there isn't going to be a single winner in this. That is, the Chinese are doing a very strong job on their AI. The Americans are as well. And we have a lot in common. We're, you know, they're humans, we're humans. So bioterrorism is not good for any of us. Cyber attacks where, you know, the financial system gets shut down or the electricity network. And so there are areas that we should cooperate and the US can look at the AI companies we have and they can do the same for them. So, it is, you know, we have a lot at stake where it's a win-win if we have the right relationship.
