What’s Next? The Future with Bill Gates Movie Review – Did Tom Hanks Really Join His Secret Lizard Society? | Television

“In 2022, artificial intelligence has woken up.”

“We are building something – wisely or not – much smarter than us.”

“We still need human cooperation. Fortunately. Let’s hope so.”

“What will we replace the human sense of purpose with?”

“We have to think about the worst-case scenario now because it is already more powerful than social media and we have already failed there.”

The scary statements come thick and fast in the first episode of this docuseries, What’s Next? The Future With Bill Gates. Many of them come from people who had a hand in inventing these things, which is not exactly reassuring. Experts, innovators, tech journalists, and—uh—filmmaker James Cameron (who’s there to deliver an extended metaphor about not waiting for the iceberg to hit to see how you’ll handle it as you pilot the new AI ship) are interviewed by the Microsoft founder turned billionaire philanthropist.

Gates is a surprisingly charming, dryly funny character – especially in the second episode, which deals with the problem of disinformation, which can now fly around the world a thousand times before the truth fires up its laptop. He discovers that Tom Hanks has probably joined his secret society of lizards, whose goal is global domination by implanting microchips in McDonald’s fries (it seems that conspiracy theorists want to combine all of America’s treasures into one giant theory, and you have to admire their work).

Gates is an optimist. I agree that we could all be better off if we lived like him and had a few billion dollars in our bank accounts. But Gates, as the show is at pains to point out, works and invests to make that optimism worthwhile. Each episode tackles a specific issue: the threat (or not!) of AI, the maintenance of truth in the internet age, the climate crisis, the vast inequality caused by unfettered capitalism (Bernie Sanders calls his wealth “obscene,” and that’s the only time Gates’ smile falters), global health care delivery, and disease eradication.

The people at the forefront of the technology that could save us in any case are interviewed, along with a celebrity or two (including Cameron, Lady Gaga and, with crushing inevitability, Bono). A promising plan or two that Gates supports to solve the problem are cheerfully outlined (next-generation nuclear power plants that won’t pollute or kill us!). Gates ends with an uplifting thought, either in narration or in person, and it’s all very brightly lit.

But if What’s Next? is to be a counsel against despair, it needs to be fleshed out. I’m happy about the possibility of a new nuclear power plant, but I’ve checked my notes several times, and the concrete plans to limit AI and preserve the meaning of humanity seem distinctly flimsy. When some of the most committed people are begging for regulation, and yet no regulation comes – what happens then? Many people seem to be basically standing around saying that they intended AI only for early cancer detection or to make online education accessible to everyone, not to replace human interaction or to reduce us all to idle lumps of flesh wandering around a fully automated planet looking for ways to fill the implacable minute. But there doesn’t seem to be any way to stop it.

There are ways, as Sanders suggests in Episode 4 (“Can You Be Too Rich?”), to address income inequality. But Gates doesn’t seem too keen on the idea of ​​limiting fortunes. Senator Mitt Romney seems more likeable company, talking about the American dream, innovation, pro-risk attitudes. But again, how that helps the 38 million Americans who can’t afford the basic necessities of life while the top 1% own 40% of the country’s wealth is far from clear. But Gates has 300 members of the former group who have pledged to give away at least half of their fortunes when they die. So that’s OK.

And what are we to make of Gates when he reveals that he never imagined the internet would be used for anything other than the dissemination of facts and the dispersion of ignorance. He never envisioned business models based on engagement and therefore fueled by outrage and gossip. He never imagined that people might come up with a million different opinions rather than the suddenly accessible but still authoritative sources of facts that are now at hand. He never imagined that democracy could be threatened, destroyed, destabilized by the unprecedented ability of people to find their people—however rare, strange, violent, sinister—and mobilize into a force to be reckoned with.

You have to ask – was this optimism, stupidity, or the most world-changing blind spot in history? What’s Next is a good question. But sometimes what’s built into the system long before is worth even closer examination.