Acknowledging that the pace of innovation in India was better than he had expected, Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates said India’s emergence as a developed nation by 2047 would benefit not just the country but the rest of the world as well. “If India can stay on the path of the 2047 plan, that will be beneficial not just to India, it will be beneficial for the whole world. The fact that you have 20 per cent of the humanity that runs, may be a semi-chaotic but truly democratic elections… and works out all its priorities — more money for health, more money for education — has created a very good dynamic where you are competing in good governance,” Gates said in a conversation with Anant Goenka, Executive Director of The Indian Express Group, at the Express Adda event in Mumbai on Thursday. “I think it is a great place to be in when the main debate revolves around whether the growth rate will be 5 per cent or 10 per cent. I don’t think it will be 10 per cent, but I don’t think it will fall below 5 per cent either. It is a great spot to be in. This is a remarkable period, offering significant opportunities. The economic growth will enable the government to allocate more funds toward healthcare and education,” he said. Gates spoke at length about India’s prospects, the work that his philanthropic group, the Gates Foundation, was doing in India, the impact of Artificial Intelligence, the role of innovation, and the threat of climate change. He said AI would bring about profound changes in human lives and discounted fears that it would take away jobs. “We weren’t born to do jobs. Jobs are a result of scarcity in the system. We will be able to have a level of output, enough food, enough medical care, that it would not require everyone to be working as today,” he said. But despite all the positive ways in which AI would influence human lives, Gates said he was still scared of this technology in general. “If I had control, I would have probably liked to slow down the pace of its development,” he said. On climate change, he said it was unlikely that the world would be able to prevent the 1.5 degree or 2 degree warming but said technology innovation would keep the planet afloat. “We won’t achieve 1.5 degree target, and would likely miss the 2 degree target as well. But there is no cataclysm at 2.1 or 2.2 degrees… Climate change will make things difficult, particularly for poorer countries, but because of the pace of innovation, we should be able to stay at a level that is not disastrous,” he said, adding that the fundamental goal of the countries must be to grow their economies and accelerate innovation. View this post on Instagram A post shared by The Indian Express (@indianexpress) Gates, who was on his third visit to India in three years, has dedicated himself full time to philanthropy through his foundation that has been working in India in a variety of sectors, mainly health. Gates acknowledged increased focus on research and development in India, and singled out digital public infrastructure (things like Aadhar, UPI, etc) as one of the big things to have come out of India. “It’s a phenomenal thing, whether in banking, government benefit distribution, insurance or stock trading; every time I am here, I see a dozen more companies (working to build upon this digital infrastructure)… Frankly, innovation in India is progressing at a faster rate than I had expected,” he said. Gates said that along with affordable vaccine development, digital public infrastructure was one of the two very valuable contributions from India to the world in recent times. Asked to pick his favourite, he said he would go with the latter. He said India was approaching AI development the right way. “Much of India’s use of AI will focus on applying it effectively. Much of the state-of-the-art foundational models are open source and widely available. These latest models, even if a few months behind on benchmarks, are accessible to everyone. India can take these and adapt them to its own needs, such as ensuring support for Indian native languages,” he said. “I learn that some groups in India are working to contribute to the foundational development as well, and that is good,” he said. But he said that subsidising the manufacturing of chips, which are the backbone of AI and a host of other technologies, was not a great idea. “India should get into chip manufacturing only if the industry is competitive,” he said. Gates rued the decline of newspaper industry globally, and said that he hoped that some philanthropist organisations paid attention to this sector as well. “It is very sad that the business model of newspapers is under threat. There are hardly any newspapers even at the national level in United States that get into investigative reporting these days. I hope some philanthropic organisations devote their attention this side,” he said.
