Bill Gates Says, ‘I Was Wrong’: The One 'Mistake' He Admits Can’t Be Undone

Bill Gates admitted that he was too optimistic in believing most people would use computers and the internet responsibly. Instead, technological progress has fueled one of the internet’s biggest challenges: misinformation. In an interview with CNBC Make It, Gates said, “Misinformation is the one where I, a little bit, had to punt and say, ‘OK, we’ve handed this problem to the younger generation.’”Bill Gates said he became aware of the severity of the problem during a conversation with his daughter, Phoebe Gates. Phoebe, co-founder of the AI shopping platform Phia, shared an incident of online harassment and explained how it had affected her friends.Also Read: Bill Gates Warns Of AI Bubble, Says Many Startups May Not Survive The Hype “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.In an interview with The Information last year, Phoebe spoke about what she described as “misconceptions and conspiracy theories” surrounding her family and personal life, including being “memed for being in an interracial relationship.”

Bill Gates on Confirmation Bias

Even as a victim of misinformation who has seen how quickly false information spreads, Gates said he understands why people gravitate toward platforms that echo their existing beliefs - a phenomenon called confirmation bias.“We have context where we want correct information, like hopefully when we want medical advice,” Gates said. “But then we kind of like, in our community and enclave, have these shared views that kind of pull us together,” he continued.“Even I will wallow. Let’s say there’s a politician I don’t like, and there’s some article online criticizing him a little bit. I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s such a good critique, [and] I enjoyed reading it, even if it was exaggerated,’” Gates said.Bill Gates admitted that he is uncertain about how to effectively curb online misinformation. While he recognised that restricting content could threaten free speech, he stressed that some regulations are necessary, though it remains unclear who should enforce them. “We should have free speech. But if you’re inciting violence, if you’re discouraging people from taking vaccines, where are the boundaries? Even the US should have rules. And if you have rules, how are they enforced? Is it some AI encoding those rules? There’s billions of interactions and if you catch it a day later, the harm is already done,” Gates said in an interview.