During a speech at the Misk Global Forum in Riyadh, billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates advocated the democratization of technological progress. If technology in schools and universities will teach only the rich, they will get the advantage, and inequality in society will only increase, Gates says..

Microsoft co-founder and one of the richest people of the world Bill Gates called for the democratization of technologies that can change the world for the better. According to the billionaire, artificial intelligence and other innovations can solve global problems in public health and other areas.

At the same time, progress is accompanied by risks. Gates refers to them a violation of privacy and the use of technology to promote the political agenda. "And yet the advantages of AI far outweigh its possible shortcomings," Gates said during his speech at the Misk Global Forum in the capital of Saudi Arabia.

However, the billionaire warned about the risks of technology elitization: "If the technologies are expensive, and they can only be studied in schools in rich countries, the gap between the rich and poor will become even stronger".

Gates believes that education in the field of AI should be accessible to the maximum number of people. Then technological breakthroughs will benefit humanity. Automation, according to the co-founder of Microsoft, will lead to social change. "As soon as we free labor from work in production, we will be able to send it to more human-oriented industries," - quotes Gates CNBC. AI will reduce the size of classes in school and teach children more effectively.

In addition, there will be more specialists in the social sphere who will take care of the elderly.

Earlier, Gates proposed to introduce a tax on robots, which will be calculated on the same principle as the income tax. The collected money will go on retraining of former workers and on creation of a salary fund for teachers and соцработников. Gates believes that salaries in the social sector will grow not only due to such funds, but also due to changes in the labor market, as a result of which empathy will become the most valuable skill.