Netflix
When you want to imagine the future, who do you turn to? Friends and family? Science fiction? New Scientist? Now you can check in with Bill Gates, as the Microsoft co-founder and multibillionaire has worked with Netflix on What’s Next? The future with Bill Gates, in which he digs into make-or-break issues: artificial intelligence, misinformation, climate change, income inequality and disease.
The five-part series is uneven, though, and the worst instalment is perhaps the first, “What can AI do for us/to us”. Gates is upfront about his role advising the leaders of OpenAI, whose ChatGPT transformed our understanding of generative technologies in 2022. But the documentary pretty much takes it as read that current AIs are miraculously competent – bar the odd bias and hallucination – and unstoppably marching towards superintelligence. Many would question that characterisation.
Advertisement
Little time is afforded to key questions such as the legalities of sometimes using copyrighted material to teach AIs and whether so-called transformer models like ChatGPT might soon hit a ceiling of usefulness. And what happens if AI-generated slop is fed back into training data? You won’t find out from this series, which is weighed down by its attempts to present Gates as a leader in this field.
I would also advise skipping the fourth episode, “Can you be too rich?” Prepare to be shocked to learn that Gates believes the ultra-rich shouldn’t be prevented from accumulating vast hoards, but should be more like him and give it away. We are told, constantly, that he has effectively imposed higher taxes on himself, as if this shouldn’t be expected of someone in his position, and are presented with a mainly US-centric view of running an economy.
When Gates covers topics like climate change and malaria, the series is better, enlightening even
Systems must be tweaked to decrease the gap between rich and poor, we are also told. The alternative – restructuring beyond the business as usual that keeps millions in poverty and poisons the planet – would be almost inconceivable, the show implies. The most charitable reading of this approach I can stomach is that it is a spectacular failure of vision.
When Gates covers topics like climate change and malaria, the series is better, enlightening even. In “Can we stop global warming?”, there is a detailed breakdown of the sectors of the economy most difficult to decarbonise. Gates invests in and is a customer of many companies offering technical solutions to some of climate change’s stickiest issues.
A lot of the firms featured have also appeared in New Scientist, such as Climeworks, which is developing large direct-air-capture plants to suck carbon out of the atmosphere. It is refreshing that Gates, Climeworks and the film-makers all stress that such infrastructure is nowhere near the scale needed to solve the problem. Such sober analysis would have greatly benefited the whole series.
By the final episode, the focus is on malaria, Gates’s real expertise. It is a thoughtful exploration of the tough ethical, ecological and social issues around developing vaccines and technologies such as gene drives, which could eliminate whole mosquito species.
But even this nuance is marred by the endless myth-making of Gates as god-emperor of all he surveys. He is undoubtedly an intelligent man with considerable achievements, just as What’s Next? undoubtedly has a few big insights. However, it is hard to see other futures with Gates standing in the way.
Bethan also recommends…
Ivor Southwood (Zero Books)
Modern life is characterised by restlessness – about work, housing, relationships. Southwood argues that this frenzy masks a paralysis of action and imagination.
Dean Spade (Verso)
For an alternative view on how transformational change can be achieved, try this great primer on mutual aid, in which resources are shared within communities to provide unconditionally for those in need.
Bethan Ackerley is a subeditor at New Scientist. She loves sci-fi, sitcoms and anything spooky. Follow her on X @inkerley
The art and science of writing science fiction
Take your science fiction writing into a new dimension during this weekend devoted to building new worlds and new works of art
