When speaking talk about technology and advances in computers, there is only a few people come first in mind.
One of the them, should be Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, a company which made world-changing software, like Windows, Office, Bing and many more.
Gates has seen many things and experienced even more, and because of that, his entrepreneurial skills allowed him to predict things before they happen.
And this in turn helped him create products for future problems.
But if there is one thing that Gates failed to predict, is the rise of misinformation.
And here, he thinks that it's the thing he may not be able to solve.
In an interview with CNBC, the billionaire said that:
Misinformation has been an issue almost since the internet’s inception. While large-scale misinformation often follows government-related events like wars or elections, the problem has worsened with advancing technology.
False claims on social media are becoming increasingly difficult to detect.
With AI now widely accessible, anyone can create convincing fake news, making the spread of misinformation more sophisticated and harder to control.
Gates, as one of the most influential tech entrepreneurs of all time, said that he doesn't have the answer to solve this particular problem.
"Even the U.S. should have rules, and then if you have rules, what is it? Is there some AI that encodes those rules? You have billions in activity, and if you catch it a day later, the harm is done."
What's worth noting here is that, Gates' experience with misinformation is personal.
He was the subject of several prominent conspiracy theories related to vaccines and other intervention measures during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. One of which, which gained significant attention during the pandemic, claimed that Gates put microchips in vaccines to track people.
It has also affected his youngest daughter, Phoebe, who spoke out against "misconceptions and conspiracy theories" during an interview.
"Hearing my daughter talk about how she'd been harassed online, and how her friends experienced that quite a bit, brought that into focus in a way that I hadn't thought about before," Gates said.
Gates, who co-founded Microsoft in 1975, told CNBC he initially believed people would use computers and the internet responsibly.
He is reflecting on his initial optimism about the internet's role in providing access to information. When he helped create technology that made vast amounts of information available to people, he assumed that users would naturally want to find and use accurate, factual information.
However, he acknowledges that while people often seek out correct information for important things, such as medical advice, they are also prone to confirmation bias.
The issue is that, people tend to subjectively evaluate all the information available, and favor information that aligns with their pre-existing beliefs or opinions, even if it's exaggerated or inaccurate.
In other words, people usually ignore facts in favor of content that reinforces what they already think.
Read: #ExposeBillGates As Conspiracy Theorists Kept Blaming Bill Gates For Coronavirus