Bill Gates on AI and climate

Well, Breakthrough Energy was created to drive innovation to avoid a climate change disaster. And what I saw in 2015 when the world came together around the Paris Agreement was that there were no technologies that could deliver products without huge price increases. And so, you know, I worked, I talked to governments and I said, you need to raise your research and development budgets and all make sure to raise billions so that whatever good ideas get generated, we can make sure they get funded and get into the marketplace. And so, you know, in the last nine years, we've backed over 100 companies. We're here, you know, showing the the state of progress. And you know, it makes me optimistic that these technologies will get out and start to bring emissions down. The goal is to get to 0. And we are hearing some of the the poorer developing countries screaming from the rooftops saying we are on the front lines of this, get your act together. Do you think the richer nations, the more powerful nations are getting their act together on this? Well, the, the need for the rich countries is not only to 0 their emissions, but also to take their ability to fund the R&D and fund the early stage rollouts so that it gets to what I call AA0 green premium. So then you can say to the middle income countries, no, this is not more expensive. If it's more expensive, they'll say, hey, the rich country should fund it. But but because that would be hundreds of billions, it'll never happen. And so the only way to square the the need to deploy this is to get it so that it's not more expensive. And that's, I wasn't sure how well that would go when I started Breakthrough Energy. And I'm amazed. The human innovation is incredible. When faced with an important challenge like this, these companies have responded. We read reports, you know, people who have left open AI, for example, who are warning that, for example, technologies that are being developed could overthrow the US government. Is that the kind of thing that that worries you, that keeps you up at night? Well, I'm not, I've not heard that particular scenario. You know, AI is so important that we have to make sure it's mostly being used by people with good intent. So anytime you have a new technology, you know, it's mostly used by teachers and doctors and scientists to help them be more effective. If you have somebody who's engaged in something like a cyber attack or, you know, political interference, AI could be used by them. And so you have to make sure the good guys are staying ahead in detecting and preventing that type of usage. Are they because there are bad actors as well? State sponsored as well Today, the there's nothing, you know, gigantic about AII mean misinformation, is there? But that's nothing to do with AI. It is something that we've got to anticipate and say, OK, if something's not real, you've got a market because, you know, we know when something's printed on a piece of paper, anybody could have typed it in. But we still think of videos as somehow authentic because it used to be hard to fake. And so a little bit people have to really ask, OK, where did this come from? There'll be laws creating penalties for fooling people. But you know, the biggest thing is going to be advancing medical science, advancing education and, you know, taking this climate issue and getting that innovation to move even faster. But in terms of cyber attacks, for example, I mean, there are concerns that infrastructure could be targeted and attacked. Hospitals, you know, water, electricity, all of these things could be targeted and hit by the bad actors. You know, there are concerns, genuine concerns around that. Sure, the but we've had that before. I mean, it's you have the defense, which has to be smarter than the offense and both sides will use AI to up their their game. If we talk about climate again, and, and also link it to, you know, we're seeing the the biggest election year right across the planet in the United States, certainly. And and here as well in the USI mean, there are concerns that should we see a Trump presidency, some of these big climate pledges that Joe Biden has made could be rolled back. Is that something that worries you? I think to solve climate, we need fairly consistent policies because we're asking investors at a very large scale to invest in things that have like a 30 or 40 year payback, like a power plant or a cement plant. And so trying to make it so these policies aren't, you know, going one way and back and forth that would slow down our our effort to make progress on this. And, you know, I'm hopeful that it's not too partisan of an issue because and we all live in the same world. I guess, you know, if I think to 2016, one of the things that President Trump at the time did was tear up the the, you know, Paris climate accord. Do you think something like that will happen again where that kind of disruption will disrupt the progress that's being made, the attention that is on this issue? But but but also row back things that pledges that have been made? You know, I think there are Republicans who think it's an important issue and and some who don't. We do have to articulate, you know, as you see more bad weather events, as you see a way of solving it by using innovation that also improves our energy security, you know, American jobs, you know, you know, companies going around the world with their great innovative ideas that the US has always been a, a big part of that. And so, you know, we, we have to engage the voters on this issue because I believe it's an important issue. So you don't think it's catastrophic the, the direction in which we're going at this stage? Sometimes these reports that come out are quite scary actually. Well, the human condition overall is improving. I mean, at the turn of the century, 10 million children died every year. Today, partly through things that governments and the Gates Foundation has done, it's it's under 5 million. And so you wouldn't want to turn the clock back. You know, you read all these scary things. Many of those are real and should drive us to action. But we also shouldn't miss the picture that, you know, the deaths from weather events, you know, our way down, that's from earthquakes, our way down. And and so if we come close to these goals and we build more resilient systems and for the developing countries, that includes climate adaptation, which is underfunded, continuing to be generous and helping them, you know, every year, overall humanity will be better off. And, you know, I guess what I'm trying to get at is the uncertainty of different leaders coming in different policies. You know, if I was to be completely, you know, blunt, do you think that Donald Trump is seeing that as a priority and will follow through with that? Or do you think those his policies, if he does become president at the end of this year, could slow things down for the United States, which does have an impact on the rest of the world? Yeah. If the US does back off on these tax credits that are really accelerating the innovation, it would slow things down. That would be a set back for the 'cause now those credits are creating jobs all over the country right now. And so hopefully by and large, we'll continue backing this, this innovation, a lot of which is helping create jobs in the US. If it does slow down, what are the consequences? Well, every year of delay means that particularly the poor countries near the equator where, you know, these are farmers, outdoor farmers who are dependent on every year's crop to avoid malnourishment. You know, that's a much worse situation than in a temperate zone country where, you know, you can probably afford one year of set back, You have crop insurance, you know, in some cases you have air conditioning. And so the suffering, weirdly, is actually in these countries near the equator that actually did nothing to contribute to the problem. Are you hopeful about the future of our planet? Well, I'm lucky I, I get to back these innovators. I get to see their work in the lab and help them think, OK, how do we get that out there and avoid millions and millions of tons of emission just for every, you know, single company of the over 100 that are here. And so that does make me hopeful. In no sense is this going to be easy. People who say, wait a minute, you know, this would require a huge acceleration and deployment. They're absolutely right. And you know, that's why we bring this community together, governments, big companies, small companies, investors and say, OK, now let's build the partnerships to surprise people by our speed of implementation. And in terms of AI, are you at all worried about the future of AI? Well, certainly AI is a wonderful technology. When it choose to help with teaching and health, it'll bring changes that will challenge governments to think, oh, my goodness, OK, this is changing. You know, how do we step up? And, you know, it's at a time where do people trust government to step in and do those things. How agile will government be? And so this dialogue where governments are starting to pay attention, that that's very important. Bill Gates, thank you so much for your time. Thank you.