Bill Gates believes that AI will be as good a teacher as humans. So much so that he can teach children to read. According to the Microsoft co-founder, this will happen faster than we think: in 18 months we could already see chatbots taking over these and other teaching tasks.
“We’ll be very surprised how much AI will help,” Gates said at the ASU+GSV Summit in California. Until now, teaching reading and writing skills had proven to be an incredibly difficult task for a computer. But now the possibilities are growing, with chatbots like ChatGPT capable of recognizing and recreating a human-like language.
Microsoft co-founder argues that AI will first serve as a teacher’s aide, but will soon fulfill the role of a direct instructor. This would allow, for example, that students with fewer resources, who live in remote areas or do not have access to educational infrastructure, can have private tutoring.
Although services like ChatGPT come with a subscription plan, Bill Gates believes that this option will still be cheaper than hiring a human instructor. Another advantage lies in the ability of these systems to adapt to each student’s learning pace, something that does not necessarily occur in traditional education systems.
Bill Gates believes that AI will teach math too
Bill Gates ensures that chatbots will excel in two areas: languages and mathematics. Although AI systems have shown in recent months that it struggles with basic calculations, big tech companies like Microsoft and Google are working to empower AI with greater reasoning abilities that allow them to solve complex mathematical problems. Is optimistic: assumes that this issue will be resolved in two years.
But there is still a lot to attend to. For example, ensuring that these tools provide accurate and reliable information. ChatGPT, GPT-4 and Bard they easily produce fake content to support known conspiracy theories. It has also been shown that these models have several biases when generating content.
Bill Gates has already said that AI will change “the way people work, learn, travel, get health care, and communicate with each other.” At the end of March he said that we are already living in “the age of AI”.
Gates is one of those who believes that AI will not replace jobs. However, he already warned that the workplace, as well as education and health, will experience a great revolution within the next five or ten years.