Gates’ expectations this time are not tied to an upcoming epidemic threat, but rather to the change that the emergence of “artificial intelligence” will bring to human lives.
A new stage of AI technologies
The American billionaire, who in 2019 turned into a wary visionary when he warned before the emergence of Covid-19 of the possibility of a deadly virus spreading in Chinese markets, believes that the world is preparing in 2023 to move to a new stage in “artificial intelligence” technologies.
No need to visit search engines
Gates said at the AI Forward 2023 forum, which was held a few days ago, that whoever wins the race for artificial intelligence is the party that will be able to develop the best and most powerful “digital assistant”. which works with artificial intelligence, indicating that this technology can radically change the behavior of users, it saves people from visiting search engines again, using certain productivity tools or even making purchases on Amazon.
An essential role for a digital assistant
According to the American billionaire, the “digital assistant” will be able to understand people’s needs and habits, and will help them read things they do not have time to read, indicating that it will take time to this powerful “assistant” to appear, because until then companies will continue to include so-called generative AI technologies similar to ChatGPT in their own products. probability is 50/50
Gates estimated that the winner who can bring the first “digital assistant” to market has a 50% chance of being a startup and a 50% chance of being a tech giant, emphasizing: You will be disappointed. What if Microsoft wasn’t among the favorites to win the artificial intelligence race?
In his speech, Gates reassured people that the inner workings of the human brain remain a mystery to scientists and that robots that function thanks to artificial intelligence are still a long way from reaching human consciousness. kept letting me.
Anticipating digital revolutions
Technology business scholar George Dagher said in an interview with “Sky News Arabia Economy” that going back to the history of the statements of tech pioneers in predicting digital revolutions, there is always a possibility that they are wrong, and it’s happened many times in the past, but it’s hard to say what Bill Gates is currently betting on, which is a wrong prediction, because things on the ground are ramping up very quickly, especially after people are sure of the capabilities that generative artificial intelligence tools possess.
Smart digital system
Dagher thinks the “digital assistant” Bill Gates predicted will soon appear, which he says will change user behavior and kill Google and Amazon, is a metaphor for an intelligent digital system, which is being upgraded. from real-time data, to evolve over time and reach a stage where it learns the habits and preferences of its users, Eventually, it becomes a digital assistant, making the same decisions that users would make if they had the same data.
Tasks for the digital assistant
Dagher adds that the “digital assistant” will use information and data associated with its users, to provide inferences and explanations about many things, such as their personality, social behavior, buying tendencies, preferences and their biases, in order to make correct predictions, indicating that this assistant will be able to learn, on its own, from its users, in order to be able to determine the appropriate decisions to be made.
When will this technology appear?
For his part, technology business specialist Fadi Haymour said in an interview with “Sky News Arabia Economy” that the “digital assistant” is a system that uses simulation, machine learning and data collection to help make the appropriate decision for its users, based on artificial intelligence techniques, pointing out that Bill Gates pointed out that the emergence of this technology to the public will not be far, but the issue still needs to be developed.
Current copies have not been made public
Haymour believes that current versions of the “digital assistant”, which are available within companies’ labs, are still primitive and imprecise, and therefore have not appeared to the public. This technology requires high precision in performance, in order to be able to integrate all the data in the real world, at the moment of its real appearance. With its updating every moment, it can therefore be understood that Gates has declared that the first company which will be able to launch the first powerful “digital assistant” will be the winner of the race for artificial intelligence, because it is not is never easy.
A digital assistant for everyone tomorrow
And the tech specialist confirms that at some point we will all have a “digital assistant”, pointing out that these programs will not possess human consciousness, but will work through data analysis, and can make many mistakes. due to inaccurate prediction, and they will raise many ethical issues related to data integrity.
