Bill Gates on AI and the rapidly evolving future of computing

1:59 – unveiling of GPT-4.0 outside of OpenAI in August/September 2022
3:35 – Bill recounts a short history of AI
5:43 – Bill’s challenge for OpenAI to get his attention
9:05 – Bill proclaiming GPT-4.0 is a fundamental change despite its shortcomings
9:43 – GPT-4.0’s shortcomings
10:18 – shortcoming 1) sense of context
11:26 – shortcoming 2) math, its greatest weakness
13:20 – Bill’s belief that the shortcomings are not fundamental and will be fixed
14:23 – Kevin and Bill talk about examples where GPT-4.0 excels
18:28 – Bill’s musings on this generation of AI’s impact on society
23:43 – Kevin’s musings on the bar being lowered to communicate with computers
25:08 – Bill’s musings on writing computer programs with natural language
27:27 – AI and the Gates Foundation. AI’s impact on education and health
33:33 – how Xerox PARC influenced Microsoft in 1979
38:34 – moving AI compute from servers to self-contained devices
39:43 – one general AI model or multiple specialized AI models?
40:43 – scaling up the models to use all known corpuses and synthetic data
45:35 – what would a young Bill Gates work on in this day and age?
50:45 – how much does Bill Gates actually read?

Bill is right. This one is a massive shift. I can't believe how many people in tech continue to point out the shortcomings. The capabilities today are enough and this is only the beginning of real language I/O.

THANK YOU. I’m 76 years old and have never considered myself ‘knowledgeable’ with or about technology. I do a lot of writing and still start my stories on paper and ink. One completed I then use Word etc to ‘refine and perfect’ what I wrote on paper. I know… very Old School’.
That said, last summer when I heard about AI and it’s possible uses, “I was hooked”.
Because of my quest for information, I happened across the interview. My very first time visiting Microsoft Corp. on line.
Thank you you two for lighting the flames of learning with in me. I truly believe this will change the world in ways we presently can’t imagine. Thank you again.

I had my first computer when I was 13 years old. Broadband internet at 15. Smartphone at 21. Chatgpt at 33. A whole new generation of kids will grow up with all these advances starting from now. For me, all of the mentioned itens were always magic and object of appreciation and wonder. Also, I had to learn a whole set of habilities to work with them —and many more to work without the use of them. For the young people right now, this is all a thing of the past. Everything is truly changed.

I feel like a person transitioning from an age without radio and electricity to an world of mass media and light bulbs. Only this time everything is happening massively faster.

Bill, it’s fun to see you get almost “giddy” over this topic. When I began with Microsoft in 1992, I was in the field trying to convince System/36 customers that one day they would want mice and color monitors for GUI PCs. Back then, OLE was magic and the dream of Clippy was almost science fiction. Except for a few practical visionaries like yourself, few could imagine the impact PCs would have across the planet. In that spirit, it’s great to see current Microsoft leaders ushering in yet another fundamentally transformative technology. Thanks for your past and continued contributions.

When I look at the young Bill Gates and look at him now I get emotional. Time spares no one. It's a pity that Steve Jobs won't live to talk to Bill Gates about AI in 2023. Truly a legend.

I’ve been using the new Bing chat for a couple of weeks and I want to give props to Microsoft. You’ve not only taken GPT4 (which is already amazing) and released it but you have majorly enhanced it.

We're living revolutionary times!

when one talk about writing codes or AI programming then Bill Gates is the right person to talk to, to get better understanding on the subject.
Kevin Scott is feeling the pressure even now when listening to Bill's suggestions. I think they want to impress Bill about their abilities of progressing AI.
Now they have the the tree trunk of AI "Ready" and looking at ways to expand the AI branches, talking to Bill to get more info on it, is the best start.
I am really really really impressed by Bill Gates knowledge even after leaving MS for so many years and not getting involved in technology stuffs, yet when asked about the future of things he can answer them so naturally - like he is born to know these stuffs.

Fascinating discussion, thank you! 🙏🏼

I feel like bill is likely the Nicola Tesla or Benjamin Franklin of our generation and doesn’t get enough credit. He’s brilliant

Children are the future. Like Bill says the education system is lagging behind. Kids use ChatGPT to write essays and teachers use ChatGPT to mark them. What's the motivation for intelligent kids to stay on in education and learn skills which are now obsolete? Has any thought been given to WHAT children need to be learning right now? I guess we just need to teach our kids to aggressively exploit opportunities and take risks. If your kids are not of that mindset, but have innate gifts in analytical thinking, language , art, music, writing, communicating, they will be unemployed. They will not be able to follow in your footsteps when you die. Use of the word 'mindblowing' just shows that the people driving this have not thought it through.

This was an excellent conversational interview. Well done!

Thanks Bill and Kevin…. This 87 year old techie started out inside a Univac II and I certainly am thrilled at the possibilities of this natural language breakthrough. It has been and continues to be a great ride…. JohnG

Kevin - flawless interview. Great energy.
Q. I want to "model" Bill's executive journey from early days to recently. As an observer-admirer since Basic days, I feel the need to complete the circle in my mind. Of course I'll look on my own, but thought I'd ask if you have one you would like to recommend.

Really quite incredible how Bill Gates has managed to stay so relevant in all these major technological breakthroughs. Reading a lot is the lesson I took from all this.

Does anyone have a link to a copy of the printout he is referencing from PARC with Charles Simonyi?

This was such an great and insightful episode! I learned so much from Bill and Kevin about AI and its impact on the world. Thank you for sharing this with us!

Great to see Bill talking about cutting edge technology, where he himself plays a part. After all Bill is a geek, he obviously love too breathe these things.

I would have found it useful to hear both participants thoughts, and those in the comments, on reading to learn vs listening to podcasts and watching videos to learn at this point in time? Especially given the latter can be usefully done with the playback speed bumped up therefore allowing you to get through more content in less time. Similarly now with AI being what it is are you learning faster having a very targeted discussion and set of Q&A with it on the subject you want to learn.