AI can play role in solving inequality, says Bill Gates

In poorer countries, where access to medical services is scarce, artificial intelligence (AI) tools can stand in as doctors in future.

Such tools can even be added to lower-end phones to provide people their medical history and appropriate, up-to-date resources in their own language at low cost, said Gates Foundation chairman Bill Gates on May 6.

The Gates Foundation is one of the world’s largest private philanthropic organisations, with US$69 billion (S$89 billion) in assets as at 2020.

Founded in 2000 by Mr Gates and his former wife, Ms Melinda French, the foundation supports initiatives in areas such as global health and education.

Mr Gates was speaking at a fireside chat organised by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) and held at Gardens by the Bay’s Flower Field Hall.

“Access to a good doctor has been just a rich-country thing,” said Mr Gates, who is also the co-founder of software giant Microsoft.

AI can also help poorer countries to level up by providing solutions in areas such as education and mental health, he added.

In agriculture, he suggested using AI to advise farmers in these countries on how best to deal with the effects of climate change on their crops.

Such initiatives would, however, require philanthropic funding so that they can reach more of the world’s population, said the tech billionaire.

More funding is also needed for research into diseases that impact less developed regions, he said, adding that he has “essentially no competition” in tackling issues such as malaria and malnutrition.

It should not be that people in such regions are more likely to die from diseases that have little impact in wealthier countries, said Mr Gates.

He cited the example of rotaviruses, contagious viruses which cause diarrhoeal disease in infants and young children.

A study by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the University of Virginia, published in The Lancet Global Health in April 2024, found that rotaviruses were responsible for more than 444,000 childhood deaths in 2021.

While rotavirus vaccines are easily available in wealthier countries, they are less accessible in poorer nations, which need them more, Mr Gates said.

“If the rich world brings its death rate down, then we should take whatever those tools are and make them cheap enough,” said the philanthropist.

And just as AI can help accelerate the development of revolutionary drugs and vaccines, governments can also use it to speed up the regulatory process for such treatments, he suggested.

The hour-long fireside chat – moderated by IMDA chairman and Temasek’s emerging technologies head Russell Tham – was attended by 160 people, including students from secondary to post-graduate levels.

At the session, Mr Gates also delved into his history with technology, beginning with learning computer programming at age 13.

He said that over the course of his career, he has seen Moore’s Law – an observation by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore that the number of transistors on a single chip doubles every two years at little cost – in effect.

Computing has gone from scarce and expensive to being accessible and “basically free”, he said, noting that early mainframes – large, high-performance computers used by large organisations – were only a fraction as powerful as today’s smartphones.

Over the next decade, AI will also become increasingly affordable and accessible, he said. “It’s hard to overstate how profound that is, in terms of what it changes.”

When asked about the type of leadership the world needs, Mr Gates said leaders who can work together are essential, pointing to the increased political polarisation in the United States in recent years.

Cooperation is needed to tackle issues such as climate change, terrorism and pandemics, he said.

“I think cooperation is what’s going to make the difference between whether we handle this well or not,” he added.

One of the world’s wealthiest individuals, with a net worth of US$113 billion, Mr Gates is on a two-day visit to Singapore.

On May 5, he met Prime Minister Lawrence Wong and Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

Mr Gates also spoke at a panel discussion at the Philanthropy Asia Summit, alongside President Tharman Shanmugaratnam, during which he announced that the Gates Foundation would open an office in Singapore.

Source: The Straits Times © SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction.

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