The advancements in artificial intelligence, generative AI in particular, have had a major impact on the work of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Former Microsoft (MSFT) President and CEO Bill Gates joins Yahoo Finance's Julie Hyman and Brian Sozzi from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland to discuss innovations in AI and its impact on the industry.

Generative AI applications (00:00:00)

"Most of the applications are just helping you be more productive. When I sit down to write something, often getting hints from the AI, having it look things over, simplify things, I found it's a real productivity increase," Gates explained. "Likewise, for coders, you're seeing 40, 50% productivity improvement, which means you can get programs sooner. You can make them higher quality, make them better."

Governance around AI (00:00:53)

"The idea that there's a lot of talk, getting government people to understand AI, could it be something where it's almost too addictive to sit there and, and talk to it. What should the guidelines be," Gates said. "I think about social media, if there is a parallel in recent years, and it feels like there was a retroactive attempt to regulate social media that wasn't quite successful. And there was perhaps some harm from social media. Do you think that there's applicable lessons to AI from that?"

Impact on 2024 election (00:03:07)

"I'm not sure for this year it's going to be that big of a thing. I mean, you want things that are generated by computers to be labeled that way. And people are talking about news organizations," Gates said. "When you have text, you say, okay, where did you get that information from? But I don't think it'll be a huge impact."

It's all part of Yahoo Finance's exclusive coverage from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where our team will speak to top decision-makers as well as preeminent leaders in business, finance, and politics about the world’s most pressing issues and priorities for the coming year.

Editor's note: This article was written by Zach Faulds.

Video Transcript

BRIAN SOZZI: Are you concerned about the pace that AI is moving in terms of innovation?

BILL GATES: There's a lot of things in terms of making it cheaper, faster, more accurate. You know, most of the applications are just helping you be more productive. You know, when I sit down to write something, often getting hints from the AI, you know, having it look things over, simplify things, you know, I've found it's a real productivity increase.

Likewise for coders, you're seeing 40%, 50% productivity improvement, which means you can get programs sooner, you can make them higher quality, make them better. So mostly what we'll see is that the productivity of white collar will go up.

JULIE HYMAN: Do you think that there does need to be governance around the globe, around AI?

BILL GATES: Well, certainly, AI can be used for all-- you know, it can be used for cyber attacks. It can be used to design a bioterrorism weapon. Whenever we have new technologies, they're used to achieve positive goals and for some challenging things as well.

So far, every technology we've come up with, even though we have some like nuclear weapons that are still to this day very, very scary, we've managed to keep them under control. And so the idea that there's a lot of talk getting government people to understand AI, you know, could it be something where it's almost too addictive to sit there and talk to it?

You know, what should the guidelines be? When we had computers, books, video games, we had to think, OK, what's the tasteful appropriate use to just get the good and minimize those negative things.

JULIE HYMAN: Well, I think about social media if there is a parallel in recent years. And it feels like there was a retroactive attempt to regulate social media that wasn't quite successful. And there were perhaps some harms from social media. Do you think that there's applicable lessons to AI from that?

BILL GATES: Well, what we're seeing in social media is that people will often cluster around extreme views or even misinformation. And, you know, I think that's part of human behavior that you want to try and avoid.

Nobody's ever come up with a set of regulations that fully deal with that. You know, different countries are gonna try different things. I hope we get better in that area. The AI comes a little bit on top of that, makes it easier to generate information.

You know, you'll have things that look like videos and images. And so it underscores the need to say, OK, what's the good part of social media? And what's the part either for young people or misinformation that regulations could reduce?

BRIAN SOZZI: How influential do you think AI in its current form will be on this coming election in the US?

BILL GATES: I'm not sure for this year it's going to be that big of a thing. I mean, you want things that are generated by computers to be labeled that way. And people are talking about news organizations. OK, let's make sure before somebody watches they know that this is an illusion just like when you have text, you say, OK, where did you get that information from? But I don't think it'll be a huge impact.