The use of artificial intelligence by the general population in developed countries such as the US to a “significant” degree will start to take place in the next 18 to 24 months, according to Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates in his year-end letter released last week. The impact on things such as productivity and innovation could be unprecedented, says Gates. “Artificial intelligence is about to accelerate the rate of new discoveries at a pace we’ve never seen before,” wrote Gates on his blog. Gates, who serves on the Gates Foundation that he formed with Melinda French Gates, focused his remarks in the letter on the uses of AI in the developing world. “A key priority of the Gates Foundation in AI is ensuring these tools also address health issues that disproportionately affect the world’s poorest, like AIDS, TB, and malaria,” wrote Gates. Gates cites multiple applications of AI in different countries while noting that the practical implementation will come not this year but in the latter years of this decade. “The work that will be done over the next year is setting the stage for a massive technology boom later this decade” through AI, wrote Gates. Examples of AI being developed for uses in education and fighting disease cited by Gates in his letter include: Fighting resistance to antibiotics, or antimicrobial resistance (AMR) — A researcher at the Aurum Institute in Ghana in Africa is working on a software tool that will comb through reams of information “including local clinical guidelines and health surveillance data about which pathogens are currently at risk of developing resistance in the area—and make suggestions for the best drug, dosage, and duration.”
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