41–50 of 228 posts
I thought this was a pretty good post, but I'm still pretty shocked that people as intelligent as Gates don't spend more time on the potential downsides. To be clear, he does highlight some of the downsides, but his responses are just "handwavy" in my opinion. What is most baffling to me is that the highlight of this post is that Gates talks about the potential for AI to reduce worldwide inequality, where in all hone…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> [...] reduce some of the world’s worst inequities. Is it fair to say that 90's and early 2000's microsoft was a great proponent and enabler of such inequalities?
Microsoft was the main driving force behind bringing down the price of computers and software come to a point where they could be in every home and in every classroom around the world. They have done more to educate people in developing countries and offer them a path out of poverty than maybe any other company in history.
> In my lifetime, I’ve seen two demonstrations of technology that struck me as revolutionary. > The first time was in 1980, when I was introduced to a graphical user interface > The second big surprise came just last year. I’d been meeting with the team from OpenAI I guess it's not surprising since Microsoft was late to the game with IE, but it's interesting he never mentions "the internet" in this list.
The internet never had its "aha" moment like AI is now. Most people didn't know or care about it until decades into its existence.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> [...] reduce some of the world’s worst inequities. Is it fair to say that 90's and early 2000's microsoft was a great proponent and enabler of such inequalities?
Microsoft was the main driving force behind bringing down the price of computers and software come to a point where they could be in every home and in every classroom around the world. They have done more to educate people in developing countries and offer them a path out of poverty than maybe any other company in history.
One may see them as a good "driving force behind bringing down the price of computers and software" for a very limited time. I don't know if the result of 90's and early 2000's microsoft was a net positive to the field.
I don't think "They have done more to educate people in developing countries [..] than maybe any other company in history" considering how they also made many governments, institutions and people dependent on their software. This eventually cost these same entities a lot more than needed if there was a healthy competition which always fought against.
What would Daddy Marx say?
He'd be right, too. But with an eye to Jan 6, I fear it won't be the revolution he wanted.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Microsoft was the main driving force behind bringing down the price of computers and software come to a point where they could be in every home and in every classroom around the world. They have done more to educate people in developing countries and offer them a path out of poverty than maybe any other company in history.
The main reason microsoft software was ever used in developing countries was because it was easy enough to pirate -- not something the company did "on purpose" that I'm aware of
[1] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-apr-09-fi-micro...
One of the biggest risks right now is viruses created by transformers trained on known viruses and anti-virus binaries and databases.
Humans created relatively simple viruses which took down hospitals, etc.. Transformer can make new "super" viruses and keep fighting the anti-viruses/firewalls in real-time with high-quality custom attacks.
> Philanthropy is my full-time job these days, and I’ve been thinking a lot about how—in addition to helping people be more productive—AI can reduce some of the world’s worst inequities. Globally, the worst inequity is in health: 5 million children under the age of 5 die every year. One great first step Open AI can take towards this is by actually making their models open. As long as the models are intentionally kept…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> [...] reduce some of the world’s worst inequities. Is it fair to say that 90's and early 2000's microsoft was a great proponent and enabler of such inequalities?
Microsoft was the main driving force behind bringing down the price of computers and software come to a point where they could be in every home and in every classroom around the world. They have done more to educate people in developing countries and offer them a path out of poverty than maybe any other company in history.
Done charity work there.
Created an IT company there.
You have it totally backward.
IT is NOT helping the poorest part of Africa. Quite the opposite.
But it does help us create a lot of BS virtue signaling about all the good we do in Africa.
The explanation would take a lot of text, unfortunately and I'm not in the mood for the rant again. But it comes from experience, not from the idealized narrative you have been sold.