Artificial intelligence (AI), climate change, income distribution, disease, and misinformation are the topics covered in the new documentary "What's Next? The Future with Bill Gates," directed by award-winning documentary filmmaker Jason Zeldes.

The series revolves around Gates' questions and opinions on all of these issues. In the first episode, Gates discusses the opportunities and challenges of AI in conversation with other major technology players such as director James Cameron and Greg Brockman, founder and president of OpenAI.

There it is clear that Gates is truly convinced that AI represents an unprecedented and high-level change for humanity.

“GPT 4 crossed kind of a magic threshold in it could read and write and that just hadn’t passed before,” Gates himself says in the documentary.

However, it is clear to him that there are also challenges along the way that humanity has to face and solve for its own good.

In general, under the heading of opportunities, there is everything that can be done with AI in education and health. In the documentary, it can be seen cases where this technology is helping to advance on those two fronts.

But on the side of concerns and challenges, it is clear that the pace of change is a matter of concern. In his dialogue with Gates, Cameron, the director, raises the issue of the speed of the AI revolution. According to him, a script is three years in the making, so it is valid to ask how it will still be relevant and pertinent three years from now, when everything will have changed. Gates replies that “the speed at wich it could improve and the sort of unlimited nature of its capabilities present both opportunities and challenges that are unique. (...) How many things it can solve versus just helping humans be more effective, that’s gonna play out over the next several years. It’s gonna be phenomenal.”

He referred to the impact of AI in finding better diagnoses against diseases or helping in the learning process of young people in areas of conflict or poverty.

The new Netflix documentary brings to the table the most important aspects that concern humanity today. The audience, hand in hand with one of the richest men on the planet, will go through these aspects understanding the dimension of each one. In general, you can see an optimistic Gates about the possibilities that humanity has to solve all these issues. Our future is at stake.