What Now? with Trevor Noah - Bill Gates

Episode Date: November 21, 2023

Trevor is joined by Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft and one of the world’s foremost philanthropists. The two talk about how he and Paul Allen schemed to get computer time as teens, the dangers AI may play in our future, what it’s like to be at the center of so many conspiracy theories, Bill’s love of pickleball, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You know, a book that talked about Fauci and I, you know, having an evil plot, the fact that that could sell so well, that was kind of shocking. Are you a dink master or do you focus on like spin? What do you go for? You have to dink. If you don't dink, you're not going to be very good. A woman came up yelling at me about how I was tracking her. I looked at her and I thought, gosh, I really don't need to track you.

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Their values change and past performance may not be repeated so we're talking to bill gates today i should say happy bill gates day everybody i feel like um christiana's gonna be a little conflicted on the one hand because you're nigerian you have to be happy for Bill Gates because he's a billionaire. And I feel like that's full on Nigerian swag. But then on the other hand, I feel like you're a socialist. My two selves are in big conflict right now. And the socialist is like, Bill, why don't you give me all your money so I can distribute it? I'm not going to tell you how I'm going to distribute it.

Just give it to me. You know, it's funny. I actually thought of this the other day. I was thinking, do we actually want things as people in life? Or do we merely want access to things to experience them so that we no longer want them? And the reason I say this is because every billionaire I've met, you know, in life will in some way, and I mean, look, obviously, this is is a generalization there are some who don't feel this way but many many many many billionaires will say to you money isn't everything and I'm gonna give it all away and they genuinely don't seem to like care much for the quote-unquote money anymore but I realize it's because they have access to everything like no one actually

wants money people just want the access that money brings. You don't want money. You want a car and then you need the money to get the car. No, Trevor, I want the money. Yeah, but what does the money get you? What does the money get you? I just like looking at money. I like seeing it. That's the difference between you and me is I don't actually like money. No, if somebody promised me access, not money, access for the rest of my life, I would take it. So if you said to me, I can fly anywhere I'd like to fly when I would like to fly, I would take that. If you said to me, I can eat the food that I would like to eat anytime,

I would take that. I do not need the money. I need the access that the money brings. I disagree. Because you have fame. Fame gives you access. But there are a lot of famous people. There are a lot of famous people who are broke, who would actually rather have the money than the fame. But you have both. You have the fame and the money. So, okay. If I gave you a billion dollars. Oh, amen.

Okay. I'm manifesting it. I'll take it. And now I put you on a deserted island. What is the point of this money? Oh my God. I'm away from humanity and have a billion dollars. You've just created the best scenario.

That's the dream. What's the point? I don't have to see any people and I'm a billionaire. Oh my gosh. Actually, I want to ask some of the team. Emmanuel, so what would you take in life? Full access or full money? I like your idea of full access.

If I can have some fancy cocktails, some vacations, I'm good. I'm not really into materialism. I maybe took in too much of Marie Kondo's teachings. It's like, just whisper to your socks, thank you so much, babe. And then you put it away and give things away and just have like one chair, a laptop and a bed. And that's it. That's all you need. But I also like to go to tropical islands and drink tequila. So in my world, you will get that access. Ben, I feel like you're just, you're looking at me like this is the craziest idea. Access just doesn't buy you a house. It doesn't put food on a table for your children. Christiana was right last week.

You need a wife. No. So you can solve this silliness. Guys. Access. I don't want to get into a nightclub, Trevor i want to eat dinner in my house oh man you know thank you ben i'm gonna try and phrase this in a way that that doesn't sound demeaning at all because i love you all as my friends in different ways but as my friend joseph opio from uganda would say open your mind uh open your mind. Guys, you're taking for granted that money is merely a representation of access.

That's all it is, right? If you have access to a house, as in you can use it as much as you want, whenever you want, then for all intents and purposes, you have a house. Here's how I know this. I know many people who have rich parents and those people have houses that their parents own, but then they get to live in them. So they'll be like, oh, my dad's house in Aspen, or they'll even say our.

They'll be like our place in Aspen, or our place in the Bahamas. But those people don't have a place. Their parents have a place. They have access to the place. These people don't have money. Trevor, you're just describing trust fund babies. That's all you're describing. People with access that don't have the thing.

That's a trust fund baby. You're saying it's better to be Bill Gates' son than to be Bill Gates. No, I'm not saying better. I'm not saying better. I feel like Emmanuel understands me. I think Barry even understands me. I'm not saying I would choose to be Bill Gates's son. I'm saying that when it comes to billionaires, the thing that they come to understand is that the true thing that their billions give them is access. Guys, Trevor's the richest person on this call. This man that's saying he wants access has so much money. Okay. He could buy all of us for the next 50 years i'm not fighting any of this i'm not fighting any of this but i think it's not really about the money it's about feeling like a sense of achievement or that you've earned something i don't think it's about the access of it for me it's about going

okay i'm building something and i'm doing something and it's not necessarily about oh my car's that nice it isn't but it feels like it's a sense of self-worth that I don't think just getting access ever gives you. So you think, you think the money contributes to that sense of self-worth? Not the spending of it, but the having of it a lot more than access does. No, this is an interesting point. I hear you. I think it's a, I think it's a lot about the worth that you get from work. Yeah. And I think if I just had access to everything,

it would give me no moral compass of going, what is the right way to be? Access breeds entitlement. Earning money breeds a work ethic. And that's why I'm a working mum. Like part of not being completely stay at home. I'm just like, you know what? Even if I'm not bringing that much to this household, this little part of this house is for me. That value is a huge,

that gives you a huge amount of self-worth and self-esteem to be like, this is my little piece of the world. That's why I admire women who can stay at home with children or men who stay at home with their kids. Cause I know you're losing a big part of your identity, which is earning. That's the truth. Or contributing to society in some way and getting money in return. That's really beautiful. Thank you. You've given me an additional perspective in understanding how brainwashed you are.

So let me put it this way. Let me put it this way. The thing that I find interesting about people like Bill Gates is this. It's like at some point, many of these rich people start to get bored of the quote unquote money. And then they start looking just for challenges. So for many people, the only challenge in life is money. You go, I want money. I want money.

I need to get money. I'm going to get money. I'm going to get a job. I'm going to do these things. I'm going to get money. And what I've noticed is the people who have all the money at some point, stop trying to make money per se. They just try and like play a game of deals and they try and like make things happen in

the world. Like Bill Gates is somebody, do you know how much of the game you have to have finished to say that your next challenge is that you're going to fight like malaria as a concept? Just think about it. What like, think of our like goals and ambitions in life. And then this guy goes, yeah, yeah, I'm going to fight against malaria. That's, that's my goal. Well, that's why I find him like fascinating as a human being because his second act with the foundation is something that most people can't accomplish in their entire lives. Like you made Microsoft. Yes. And then you made this

foundation that just like gets rid of diseases. That to me is just like, that's fascinating about that type of the psychology behind that type of human being, because he could have just been like, okay, I'm done. I made Microsoft the most significant technology company in modern times. And he was like, no, I'm actually going to build the most significant foundation in modern times. And he was like, no, I'm actually going to build the most significant foundation in modern times. And he had no experience in foundations. You know, I think part of the reason there are so many conspiracies around Bill Gates is exactly because of what you just said. His action doesn't make sense. And we are extremely, extremely skeptical and suspicious of actions that do not make sense.

Because if Bill Gates just carried on trying to make as much, and I mean, actively, like he's like, I'm running Microsoft and I'm going to try and make it to 200 billion, 300. Everyone would be like, yeah, I mean, he's doing what he's doing. That's what you do. You make that money. But then Bill Gates goes, I'm going to try and eradicate disease. And people are like, this guy's kind of, he's trying to put microchips in our head. Bill Gates kept telling people, hey, we're not ready for a pandemic. And then when the pandemic happened, I thought people would go, oh man, thank you, Bill. You warned us. No, people

were like, ha, you planned it all along. How did you know it was coming, dude? You sneaky, sneaky man. Well played. Well, well played. You just want to put those microchips in our arms. Which, by the way, I'd love to know, what do people actually think the microchips do? I've never gotten to the bottom of this. Because I've asked some people who are conspiracy theorists, and they say, Bill Gates is trying to put microchips in us. I have some friends, by the way, I don't know if you have, Christiana, like friends back home in Africa, because I have some African friends who

believe this. They go, Bill Gates is here putting microchips inside us. And then I'm like, okay, but explain this to me. What does the microchip do? Is it controlling your mind? Is it tracking you? Because I mean, if Bill Gates wanted to track you, I think he could just use your phone, which you keep on you all the time. They haven't thought that far along. I only know conspiracy theorists. That's probably a problem. Would you really want to be a billionaire?

If I say no, I'm lying. If I say yes, I look awful. So no comment. I like this. I like this. Well played. Ben, what about you? Would you be a billionaire? In an absolute heartbeat. I like this. Well played. Ben, what about you? Would you be a billionaire?

In an absolute heartbeat. I mean, in a heartbeat. What do you mean? I now see why the NHS is failing in England. Look at this. Huh? Our British compatriots are supposed to be the ones who are pushing for a more equal society. And you guys are both like, Emmanuel, would you want to be a billionaire?

All dark is the money. Where did it come from? If it's kind of like Bill Gates, where he invented something that revolutionized the world, helped me get online when I was younger and talk to strangers that were much older than me, who I shouldn't have been talking to. Thanks for that, Bill.

And that's fine. But if it's like coming from dark places, I don't want to be part of that. So I'll just stay poor. So clean money, you'd be a billionaire. Yeah, sure. And then everyone can come on the yacht with me and Rihanna. I'm really surprised.

I'm really surprised. Okay. Trevor, would you be a billionaire? You probably already are. But would you be a billionaire? No, and I'm not even lying when I say this. So I think money in life at some point there's diminishing marginal utility at some point the money is just the money it's like what are you doing yeah and so

in my life I've realized yes I definitely need money because I'm not crazy the world works a certain way but the thing I'm searching for in life now is access and being able to make an impact in my own little world. And that's why I wanted to chat to Bill Gates. How do you have a billion or many billions and not just think about yourself? How do you have billions and think about curing diseases that don't affect you? I don't think Bill Gates has ever had malaria or ever struggles with it. So yeah, he's going to be popping in soon. It's going to be a fun chat. Let's see. Mr.

Bill Gates. Trevor. Oh, the man, the myth, the legend, William Henry Gates, the third,

but the streets call him Bill Gates. Yeah. I still think back to that incredible tennis match we did together on the eve of the pandemic. It was phenomenal. It really was. We had four people out there and the crowd loved you and we'll have to do it again. We really should. I was chatting to Roger about it the other day and I was saying it was the one.

I still try and practice the tennis just in case the day comes because of how scary that was. You still play a lot, don't you? I play a lot of tennis. Yeah, it's my biggest hobby. Oh, okay. So that's your like switch off, just do your own thing. Have a good time. Yeah, a mix of tennis and pickleball.

You know, if ever there was something that showed me that humans are always prone to conflict, it's tennis versus pickleball. No religion, no race, no socioeconomic anything. Tennis players hate pickleball players and they're coming for their scalps. And it's actually fascinating to see. So which side, you're just on both sides, you don't mind. Yeah, pickleball was actually invented here in Seattle. So I've been playing for 50 years and I love both sports. So it is funny to watch the fight over the court space and which one is better. They're both amazing. Which one would you back yourself in?

If you had to play one sport against aliens to save the world, would you go with tennis or pickleball? Well, I'm relatively better at pickleball because I've been playing so long compared to other people. But both sports are amazing. Are you a dink master, or do you focus on spin? What do you go for? You have to dink.

If you don't dink, you're not going to be very good. You have to have this third shot. It is kind of a subtle game. You have long rallies because you get into that dink, dink, dink thing. Yeah, yeah. This episode is brought to you by Fidelity Investments Canada. Make investing simple. Fidelity's all-in-one ETFs

are designed to do just that. In fact, Fidelity does the heavy lifting, including rebalancing these ETFs to help navigate changing market conditions. Visit fidelity.ca slash all-in-one. Getting closer to your goals could start today. Commissions, fees, and expenses may apply. Read the funds or ETFs prospectus before investing. Funds and ETFs are not guaranteed.

Their values change and past performance may not be repeated. What day of the week do you look forward to most? Well, it should be Wednesday. Ahem, Wednesday. Why, you wonder? Whopper Wednesday, of course. When you can get a great deal on a whopper. Flame grilled and made your way, and you won't want to miss it so make every Wednesday a whopper Wednesday only at Burger King where you rule so there are a few people I have an opportunity to speak to that elicit more I would say like diverse responses than you do like if I say to somebody I'm speaking to, let's say a musician, an actor, a scientist, and anybody, everyone sort of has one line of

questioning or one idea. They go, oh, I love their music. I love what they do. I know this from them. I know that from them. When you say you're speaking to Bill Gates, I have one or two friends who go, oh my God, ask him about being a billionaire. Ask him for money. We need some money. You have one or two friends who go, I want to know about malaria. I want to know what he's tracking with mosquitoes. Are we getting closer? You talk to other people, they go, let's talk about AI. Let's talk about the future of computers and technology. And then some people have random questions like, what's his favorite computer right now? So maybe let's start with this. How does Bill Gates see Bill Gates? Because you've had so many evolutions of who you are over time.

What do you see yourself as primarily right now? Yeah, so I had a long period from about age 18 to 40 where I was very monomaniacal. That is, Microsoft was everything. I was very monomaniacal. That is, Microsoft was everything. Once I dropped out, I didn't let myself focus on much else. Then I was lucky enough that as other people took over Microsoft, I got to go and read and learn about all the health challenges, why children die. challenges, why children die. And that led to the Gates Foundation being my full-time work. So innovation ties all those worlds together. And today I'm involved in all of them. Microsoft with the AI work, the health stuff, we're continuing to make amazing progress on reducing child to death. And now people are realizing more than ever that if we don't

innovate to get rid of emissions, we're going to be in deep trouble. You know, I loved computers growing up. I was on the hardware side. I didn't really have access to software. I couldn't really program with the PCs that I could get my hands on. But I loved hardware. You know, I remember one of my favorite days was when the PCI slot was like invented. I remember that being a defining moment for me. I was like, this changes everything. And I would love to know for you, what was the defining moment in your childhood that steered you towards a career in technology? Because people forget that when you were doing this, this wasn't obvious. What was the moment when Bill Gates went, this

is the thing that I'm going to dedicate my mind, my life, my passion to? Yeah, I was 13 when I did very well on some math exams. And so people were thinking, okay, he's good at math. Like how well? Like really well. And then a computer showed up And then a computer showed up, and people were having a very hard time figuring out what to do with it. So people kept kind of egging me on, saying, oh, you're really good at math. Why don't you come down here? And so I was part of the group that played around with it. One of the teachers made a mistake on the computer and lost $200. So no teacher ever touched that computer ever again.

And do you remember what the mistake was? Yeah, it was an infinite loop. And it was a time sharing computer where you actually had to pay for the compute time. And he didn't hit the stop command. He thought, why isn't the program doing anything? But he had written what's called an infinite loop. So Paul Allen and I and a few others kind of took over that computer room and lavished our time on figuring out what was going on.

Did you ever make a mistake that cost the school $200? Or were you far beyond that? Well, I understood to avoid an infinite loop. We went around trying to get free computer time, offering up our services because computers were very, very expensive back then. So we offered to write all sorts of boring software just so we could have access to computers. So, you know, you were there at the very beginning. You were there at a time when it was all mystery and all opportunity. And I mean, many would argue there's still as much mystery and as much opportunity, but there's no denying

computers, technology, all of this is just, it's our lives now. As somebody who has been at the forefront and continues to look at technology, how do you perceive the role of technology in shaping human morality? Because it's one thing to think about what it can do, but do you ever think about how technology can shape human morality and if it should? Yeah, that's been interesting because until social networking came along, I always thought of computing as helping us be more moral and achieve our highest values because you could go out and see the lawsuit

and read what was there. You could go out and learn the facts about inequity or government budgets. And when we made a word processor, we thought, okay, this allows anybody to express themselves. It's like they have a big typesetting machine. We never thought, oh, they can do really rude documents. It was just about empowerment and productivity. And then the idea with social networks that you could kind of cluster around crazy ideas or hate and that outrage would sort of get people to click more.

That was a huge disappointment to me that the invention, the digital revolution, had kind of this negative side that it played to some human weaknesses. But until social networking, I always thought, hey, we're the empowerment people. We're tools for the mind so people can be more creative. And of course, that's still there in a fantastic way. But also now this fear of what does it mean of letting people cluster into their own groups and be polarized? You know, even the craziest ideas, people create a community that, yeah, we all believe this insane thing. You know, there's two parts to this for me. In speaking to the creators of this

technology, it feels like most inventors and most technologists are truly trying to make the world a better place. I've met not one who goes, I'm trying to burn the world down. And yet it seems like that blind ambition or that blind optimism becomes a blind spot that sort of, you know, completely obscures what this technology can be used for. Do you think that's changing? Have you seen that changing? When you even think about technology, do you spend more time now thinking about the potential side effect, the collateral damage, as opposed to just what it can do positively? Absolutely. You know, this idea of does the good outweigh the bad and how do you minimize the bad is a huge challenge. However, society, you can't depend on the nerdy people

like myself to understand what the impacts are going to be and to shape those and set the rules around them. So now we see this with AI where, again, fantastic positive potential, but people, at least this time, trying to anticipate, okay, where will there be downsides and can we minimize that? We never did solve the social networking problem. That's still out there. And when you take the pandemic plus social networking, what came out of that, including some stuff focused on me, was completely stunning, you know, a wild combination. Has it changed your appetite or your ability to do what you do? Because you went from being Bill Gates, the well-known billionaire in the world who's,

you know, technology. And then he's, okay, he's doing things. He's trying to help cure malaria. And I mean, this is how I knew you, you know, you'd read the stories, you'd see Bill Gates traveling around Africa, helping, et cetera. And then all of a sudden it became Bill Gates has microchips inside the vaccine that he's using to track you. I can't help but imagine that that would affect my ability. You know, if people said all of those things about me and it started swelling the way it did, there's a part of me that would go, all right, I'm just going to go live by myself and with my friends. And did it affect your appetite at all? Well, I was out on the street in Seattle and a

woman came up and yelling at me about, you know, how I was tracking her. No ways. And I looked at her and I thought, gosh, I really don't need to track you. I'm sorry. Let me take the chip out of you. So it's kind of funny in a way. And most of the people I'm around know to laugh about these things. people I'm around know to laugh about these things. The fact that a book that talked about Fauci and I having an evil plot and actually killing millions of children with vaccines,

the fact that that could sell so well was just another surprise to me about human nature and how having an oversimplistic explanation of what was going on or the motivation, that was kind of shocking. I haven't withdrawn in any way. It's just there. You do have to laugh about it. Right. But has it affected your work in any way?

Do you find any resistance in some of the places you travel to now where people say, we've heard of you and we don't like what you stand for, even though that's not what you stand for? The attitude towards me is not that key, but the attitude towards vaccines has been damaged a lot. And getting kids to take things like the measles vaccine is super important in many countries. That's the difference between life and death. So the skepticism about vaccines or medicine is very high, and that's making our health work a lot harder. We'll be right back. dealer studio exclusively on FanDuel Casino where winning is undefeated. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Please play responsibly.

I often wonder about messaging and storytelling and how important it is to the implementation of any idea or getting anything out there. I wasn't around for the very beginning of the computer, but I'll never forget when my mom brought a Pentium. It was a 386 or a 286 home. She didn't know what it did. Some man had given it to her from an office that was being cleared out. And she put this in our bedroom and she said, this is the future. Learn how to use it. And I said, what does it do? And she said, your guess is as good as mine. It looks like a TV that's connected to a typewriter. And she said, go for it. But what I found interesting

was she didn't have apprehension. I found people around me were intrigued. They were excited. They wanted to know what it could do, where it could take us, et cetera. And I wonder if, you know, because you were there at the Genesis, is there a different storytelling that happened around computers that isn't happening around healthcare? Like what story were you telling people about computers that they were so willing to jump in to, I mean, something that's completely foreign? Yeah, the story was very much about empowerment. There was some apprehension when computers were just off there being used by the government and big corporations.

When you got hobbyists able to assemble them and talk about all the details, then it felt like a bottoms-up movement that we, the people, controlled the computer and we were going to use it to catch the big company or to pursue our creativity. And so, it really was a positive story. You know, I'd say Steve Jobs, myself, and a few other people were actually kind of evangelistic where we'd say, try this thing out, tools for the mind. And it was very generational that young people were willing to be confused and tried the thing out. And very few older people got involved. Our industry was very, very young and just incredibly fast moving, but it didn't have this, oh, this will be a tool for Holocaust denial or weird impacts. And the idea that it would directly

be used for political influence, you know, one country trying to undermine another, that did not occur to us. You could say in this stage, we were kind of naive. If you could go back in time and do it all again, knowing what you know now, what are some of the changes you would make? What are some of the fail-safes you would put in? Would you continue to invent the home computer as we know it? You know, what would Bill Gates do differently knowing what he knows now? I'd do it all again. Wait, wait, even Windows Millennium?

Really, Bill? Okay, we had a few products that weren't perfect. And they always gave us a hard time that you should wait till the third version of our product because then, you know, we'd get it pretty right. So yes, you know, there are some detours along the way. But even to this day, you know, how we should have shaped social networking, you know, I think if you let people connect and get together, and then you have this feed that you're trying to keep people engaged, it does speak to a human weakness that it's more interesting to hear something outrageous about the person you don't like than it is to be educated. They don't know their side kind of has a point, and here's why they're so exercised in pushing us in this direction.

a point and here's why they're so exercised in pushing us in this direction. And, you know, I'm hopeful the next generation can take that and curb how difficult that is. But we still don't have a solution to that problem, even as, you know, now we have AI that in a way could supercharge some of that. The sentence you just said is key to me. You said, trying to get people engaged. So I find any product or any service or any technology that is designed, you can often trace its floor back to the motivation. If you say, we want as many people to be engaged in this thing as possible, there's a good chance that that is going to override it being a good product or override it being a healthy product, et cetera, et cetera. Let's use snacks as an example.

People want somebody to eat as many snacks as possible. You try and make the chip as tasty and as addictive and as crunchy as possible because you forego everything. You don't design a fail safe into a potato chip to stop people from overindulging. And so I wonder if it lies in the motivation. from overindulging. And so I wonder if it lies in the motivation. If you think about it, let's say a computer, a PC, once the PC was bought, that was it. It was like, this is the tool, the same as a car. They're not trying to get you to buy or use the car as much as possible. It's like the purchase is the purpose. And as we move into a service age, it feels like we're becoming, I don't know if

greedy is the right word, you know what I mean? But where we're becoming, I don't know if greedy is the right word, you know what I mean? But where we're saying, try and get people to do this as much as possible at all costs, stream endlessly, eat endlessly, post endlessly, consume endlessly. And I wonder if that's something that you've noticed on your side, you know, because you weren't really creating things that needed to be consumed, but rather things that needed to be used. Yeah, in the early days, it was so neutral that, okay, here's a word processor, here's a spreadsheet.

And, of course, okay, video games were the thing that, yes, you would stay up too late. But then we hoped your parents or, you know, the fact you had to go make money the next day, that some level of a discipline would come in. But the internet was really going to enlighten people. It was going to make people more capable of helping even with, say, political decisions. And of course, we did see some of that. But the idea that the overconsumption of, okay, I really hate those other people. Oh, here's somebody who can insult that politician I don't like better than anyone. I'm going to click on this. The content that says, no, we're one country, we've got to work together is kind of like, eh, what a boring thing that is. Well, yeah, it doesn't connect with anything, yeah. Yeah, and you don't, you're not outraged. And, you know, kind of my group knows better than that.

You know, humanity's always had this us versus them. And as we got wealthier, the idea that we can go beyond our family, to our clan, to our nation, to all of humanity, you humanity, that was supposed to be the progression. But this has us a little bit retrograde down to, hey, we're the people who believe in QAnon. So when you look at something like AI today, obviously you are in rooms where you're having conversations that the rest of us aren't. But even in the basic conversations I've had with people who create AI, work in AI, and then consume AI, there seems to be a world of extreme optimism. Anything is possible. This is amazing. And then there's also a really strong

slither of fear and doubt. People saying, we don't really know how it works. We don't really know why it works. And so we don't know what it'll go on to do. Where do you stand in all of this? Well, in the near term, the productivity gain you get from AI is very exciting. If you're programming, it will suggest filling things in, or it'll help you create tests. It's taking away part of the drudge work. A doctor who has to fill out paperwork, if the software listens in, it can help write the letters. And I think we will begin to understand better why it works so well some of the time and why it seems so stupid at other times. The big concern is about the generations yet to come when it gets way smarter than it is

right now. And if a person with malintent was using that, say, for a cyber attack or to make a deep fake that makes a politician look like they're doing something awful or even one of your relatives saying, okay, I've been kidnapped. This time, at least, we're considering the negatives at the same time as the positives. Sometimes I actually think we go overboard looking at those negatives because the idea of a personal tutor for every student or a medical doctor-type advice for people in Africa, it's fulfilling such a basic need. So the positive is really going to be pretty amazing just in the next few years. You know, I don't know if you've ever had this

thought. I find myself, because obviously I've been playing with every type of AI that comes out, all the large language models. And what I've been intrigued by is not the fact that it's sort of us creating this intelligence, but I'm often intrigued by the idea that we may be getting more answers about what we consider intelligence as human beings. For instance, what you just said, you said it makes mistakes. I mean, we know this, it makes mistakes, it hallucinates, and it sometimes says incorrect things, et cetera. And I love that you used the word dumb because isn't it being human? Isn't that what humans do?

There's doctors who make mistakes. There are accountants who say the wrong thing. There are lawyers who forget the case law, et cetera. In a weird way, I sometimes go, have we not actually created how we think? Is there anyone who thinks that way? Or am I crazy in even considering that? Yeah, absolutely. Some of the mistakes are like human mistakes, although some of the mistakes are still so stunning because we always think of computers as so good at computation, and yet some of

these large language models, there are mathematical things that they're very stupid about. Like TachyPT couldn't do Sudoku puzzles, and it would pretend to do them. And when you'd say, no, that's completely wrong, it would say, oh, I must have mistyped. Well, there's no typewriter anywhere in this picture. That is amazing. So the idea that it, because of what it saw on the internet, it decided, okay, when somebody accused you of making a mistake, you're supposed to say, okay, I accidentally mistyped. That is so funny to me. I find that more impressive funny.

Like I always think to myself, I think that is true intelligence. You know, there's something similar in babies where they say, when your child first learns to tell a lie or the earlier they learn to tell a lie in their lives, you should be impressed because that means they've started to understand risk and reward and they've started to understand the ramifications in life. And so I go like, isn't that something we should be celebrating? We go, wow, the AI knows that it can lie and it knows that it should lie in certain situations. So we are in fact creating an artificial intelligence. It is stunning. The fact you can say, write this like a pirate or write the Pledge of Allegiance the way Trump would write it. I mean,

it is so fluent. Let me ask you this. Every single industry is looking at how AI can help improve what it does. There are two parts that if we don't address could lead to mass disruptions. And I mean, you see this in Africa in a different way. When any new technology emerges, it is bound to displace people who have certain jobs. What we do know is on the other side of that curve, there is a possibility that more jobs will be created. Now, you literally saw this firsthand with the computer.

The computer displaced what so many people were doing as their jobs. And yet, because of the computer, millions and millions more people have jobs. So with the AI, have you seen a solution? Have you seen any innovative bridges where people are thinking of how to minimize that gap? And do you think about the ramifications of this technology that could take jobs away? you think about the ramifications of this technology that could take jobs away? And if that gap is long enough or big enough, what happens in that? We've seen when young men don't have jobs, they become radicalized, they become violent, they join extreme groups anywhere in the world. It doesn't matter what it is. Have you found a solution to this? Do you think we're thinking hard enough about this? Well, if you zoom out, the purpose of life is not just to do jobs. So if you eventually get a society where you only have to work three days a week or something, that's probably okay if the machines can make all the food and the stuff and we don't have

to work as hard. There are displacements, and if they come slow enough, they're generational. So you could have had a grandfather who thought the only real job was being on a farm, and then a father who did some farm work and some other work. And now, this generation, only 2% of Americans are involved in farming in any way. And that's OK, even though grandpa would think, oh, that's awful. You're not getting your hands dirty. even though grandpa would think, oh, that's awful. You're not getting your hands dirty.

So if it proceeds at a reasonable pace and the government helps those people who have to learn new things, then it's all good. It's, you know, the aging society, it's okay because the software makes things more productive. But eventually, you know, if you free up human labor, you can help elder people better, have small class sizes. The demand for labor to do good things is still there if you match the skills to it. And then if you ever get beyond that, okay, you have a lot of leisure time and we'll have to figure out what to do with it. Yeah, I think that's the ultimate challenge. I keep thinking to myself, the conversations we're having around AI lie right now predominantly in, oh, which jobs and which jobs do we give people? I keep saying to my friends or anyone I speak to is I go, what is the purpose of a job though? Do we still need it? Will we still need it?

And when society goes through a revolution that eliminates many of the jobs that we've considered our purpose, what becomes our new purpose as people? Are we all poets now? I really wonder what it is. I actually would like to go back to what you said though about grandpa and farming. What does Bill Gates know about farming that nobody else does? Because the last I checked, and I don't know, please correct me if this is not true, you are now the largest single land owner in the United States of America. And I'd love to know why. Why would a man who's built his entire empire on this ephemeral thing that's in a cloud, why would you think there's any importance in land and agriculture?

What are you seeing that we don't? Yeah, it's amazing how diversified the ownership is. I own about one four thousandth of the farmland, you know, so there's basically no big individual landholder. I own a lot, you know, it's maybe 10% of my assets. The decision to buy this land was made by people who helped manage my money so that we get a good return so that the foundation can buy more vaccines. And they saw that if we could invest in land and improving the productivity of that land, that it would have a good return. So I was kind of shocked to see the headline saying I owned the most. Yeah. Well, again, I guess it goes back to our conversation. It is brilliant framing because now when you say, you know, one 4,000th own, and then you're like, oh, wait, wait, wait. So now to say you're the single largest, you know, it's like saying, oh, you're the tallest child in kindergarten. It's like, all right, we're not exactly measuring. It's like saying, oh, you're the tallest child in kindergarten.

It's like, all right, we're not exactly measuring. But yeah, before I let you go, I'd love to know, Bill Gates, what now? We've been through a pandemic. We've started a new journey in technology, AI. Where does it take us? What does it mean? You've been on a personal journey, going through a very public divorce and your public life being out there for everyone to scrutinize. What now for you? What are you looking forward to? Where are you going? And what do you hope the next few years of your life will be about? Well, I'm super lucky in all the work I do,

whether it's AI innovation and taking that so everybody can have a great doctor, a great personal tutor. Health work we do where we still have 5 million children die a year. That's down from 10 million when we got started, but it's still awful. So things like malaria we need to get rid of. And then inclinement, we have to avoid that making our lives worse. So my work is super fun. we have to avoid that making our lives worse. So my work is super fun. My three children are all doing well. Great to see the world through their eyes. My ex-wife, Melinda, and I continue to work at the foundation, which is very fulfilling. I'm the luckiest person alive. I hope people see that the world's improving. There's a lot of despair out there. You know, if we innovate in the right ways, something like climate will not be an existential problem.

So I'm a little bit spreading the good news while trying to drive the innovation in all those three areas. Yeah. Sometimes I feel like it's a difficult needle to thread. It's contradictory because on the one hand, you have to draw people's attention to all the things that are going wrong. But on the other hand, you have to tell people that the world is in a better place than it has ever been. And it means, you know, there's a cognitive dissonance. We have to hold both of these truths at the same time. Yeah, no, that is a paradox that, hey, 5 million children are dying, feel bad. By the way, at the turn of the century,

it was double that. And even with climate, it's definitely a glass half full. We're not going as fast as we want because the pandemic came, but a lot of brilliant people are being funded and coming up with breakthrough ideas. So a little bit, people are overly negative right now, I would say. They should see the hope because humans are so inventive. Well, I'll say this. It's always wonderful speaking to you. And if I see any new conspiracy theories about you, I will pass them on, but also tell people they're not true. But I pass them on first so that we have fun with them. And then we go from there. What Now with Trevor Noah is produced by Spotify Studios in partnership with Day Zero Productions, Fullwell 73, and Odyssey's Pineapple Street Studios. The show is executive produced by Spotify Studios in partnership with Day Zero Productions, Fullwell 73, and Odyssey's Pineapple Street Studios.

The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Ben Winston, Jenna Weiss-Berman, and Barry Finkel. Produced by Emmanuel Hapsis and Marina Henke. Music, mixing, and mastering by Hannes Braun. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next Thursday for another episode of What Now?