The future according to Bill Gates

Brut America

Should humans settle on Mars? Will there be another pandemic? Can we eradicate poverty?   We asked Bill Gates about the future. Here's what he said …  Gates Foundation #goalkeepers2030

Transcript

00:00The Earth is incredibly hospitable compared to Mars.

00:05I don't see any future for us if we don't take care of Earth.

00:14Yes, we don't know when, but we made a mistake not being ready for this one.

00:20We were lucky that the death rate wasn't even higher.

00:26And so investments so that we can stop it before it goes global,

00:34you know, the benefits of that are very, very large.

00:42Well, AI is getting better and better.

00:44You know, if you make jobs more productive, that can be definitely a good thing.

00:48You know, just like we made agriculture more productive,

00:51and so we freed up people to do other things.

00:53I don't think we'll lose control to AI.

00:56I do think that as it progresses, the job markets will change.

01:02And so we'll have to reskill people to work in the areas we still have needs.

01:07I mean, after all, we've got free labor to help old people

01:11and help handicapped kids or have, you know, classroom sizes very small.

01:18You know, human labor is a valuable thing.

01:21And so if we use those improvements in the right way,

01:26overall, we can improve the human condition.

01:32The Earth is incredibly hospitable compared to Mars.

01:37And so I don't see any future for us if we don't take care of Earth.

01:43You know, we may have a few people in other places,

01:46but overwhelmingly the issue is doing a good job

01:50and staying here on Earth.

01:56I think so.

01:57The piece of innovation of doing things the green way,

02:02you know, making cement a different way, making steel a different way,

02:08having transportation that uses electricity that was made with no emissions.

02:16There's a path.

02:17And so I think the big question is, do we get there fast enough?

02:21And do we help with the adaptation requirements that in the meantime,

02:26you know, particularly the poor countries near the equator are suffering?

02:30You know, they deserve our help, even as we go full speed ahead,

02:35trying to get emissions to zero as fast as we possibly can.

02:40Yes, for short distance air travel, batteries are good enough.

02:46For long distance travel, no.

02:48We'll have to either use green fuels or even perhaps green hydrogen

02:54to power those planes because the batteries can only take you a modest distance.

03:04There are areas of the world like parts of the world where

03:08the ability to grow food, particularly in the face of climate change,

03:13you know, makes that uneconomic.

03:15Food requires water and very inexpensive water.

03:20Trade in food helps us where you can have bad weather in one part of the world

03:26and you avoid the malnutrition and price spikes by having the parts of the world

03:31that had good weather make their food available.

03:34Africa should become a net food exporter.

03:37The small hodl farmers there deserve to have export markets.

03:44You know, we want to raise their incomes.

03:46There are parts of the world that won't be self-sufficient,

03:48but Africa in particular, we need to help them so they are a net exporter.

03:58Well, certainly infectious disease, which is very common in Africa,

04:02certainly infectious disease, which is where I'm spending all the resources I have.

04:09I think we can reduce those deaths super dramatically,

04:13including eradicating polio and measles and malaria,

04:19and so almost no infectious disease deaths.

04:22I don't think humans will live forever,

04:24but the infectious disease that are what kill most children, those we can get rid of.

04:33Well, poverty has come down pretty dramatically, and that's an incredible achievement.

04:42Poverty can be cut to near zero.

04:46We have countries becoming richer.

04:50They can be more generous to the poor countries.

04:54A lot of the big population countries like India, Brazil, Indonesia,

05:01Vietnam are becoming middle-income countries, so we can help the poorest countries even more.

05:07Poverty has gone down, and we can get it down to very, very low levels.

Category

Transcript

Recommended