Bill Gates and Rishi Sunak talk to an AI chat bot

Of late Microsoft’s Bill Gates and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak took to answering question generated by an AI chat bot.

In a video posted by Sunak’s office last month, the British PM read out some AI generated question to Gates, one of them being what he would tell his younger self if he could go back in time.

AI Chat Bot

“I was kind of overly intense. I didn’t believe in weekends. I didn’t believe in vacation.”

“How do you think technology will impact the economy and job market in the next 10 years?”, asked Sunak to the AI chat bot.

“Well, we clearly need to be more efficient. There’s a labour shortage, you know in healthcare and education. If you go to the low income countries, they never have enough doctors or teachers. Hopefully technology like the one that generated this question can help us be more efficient,” said Gates.

Gates currently has a net worth of $105.2 billion which would be understandable considering the above work ethic but he did say it made him socially inept in some ways.

Harsh Boss

“I had this very narrow view of the working style, the talking style,” he said. He also admitted to being an overly demanding boss who spoke harshly to employees.

In a podcast interview with Armchair Expert in 2020 he had said, “I never asked [Microsoft employees] to work any harder, or be tougher on their mistakes than I was on myself. It doesn’t completely forgive it, but at least it shows where you’re coming from, that at least you’re projecting your own values and trying to get everyone to be hardcore like you are.”

Continuing on the AI chat bot he told Sunak that eventually he learned to lighten up.

“For the small, early Microsoft group, that was OK. But, then as we got bigger, I had to realize that, OK, as you get sales teams in, as you get people with families in, you’ve got to think about this. It’s a very long-term thing.”

“If I could go back in time I would help myself try to realise that a little sooner than I did,” he added.