Reddit AMAs have provided Internet users opportunities to ask questions to all different kinds of people, from authors, to politicians to former Disney Princesses. Sometimes particularly influential people take the time to answer questions there though, like Windows CEO and Gates Foundation founder Bill Gates did on Wednesday.
While Gates had hosted AMAs before, this one was particularly relevant, considering the recent reveal of Windows 10 and the Hololens.
Between answering questions about life regrets and creating clean drinking water out of human waste, Gates revealed his take on many tech-related issues, including what he thinks the future holds.
"There will be more progress in the next 30 years than ever.....Even in the next 10, problems like vision and speech understanding and translation will be very good," Gates wrote. "Mechanical robot tasks like picking fruit or moving a hospital patient will be solved. Once computers/robots get to a level of capability where seeing and moving is easy for them then they will be used very extensively."
Gates expressed a lot of excitement about tech coming in the near future as well, such as Microsoft's Hololens.
"The Hololens is pretty amazing," he wrote. "Microsoft has put a lot into the chips and the software. It is the start of virtual reality. Making the device so you don't get dizzy or nauseous is really hard. The speed of the alignment has to be super fast. It will take a few years of software applications being built to realize the full promise of this."
Another Microsoft project Gates promoted was the Personal Agent.
"One project I am working on with Microsoft is the Personal Agent which will remember everything and help you go back and find things and help you pick what things to pay attention to," according to Gates. "The idea that you have to find applications and pick them and they each are trying to tell you what is new is just not the efficient model. The agent will help solve this. It will work across all your devices."
When one Redditor asked whether programmers of a certain level would be replaced by automated solutions in the near future, Gates did not believe there was cause of concern.
"It is safe for now!" Gates wrote. "It is also a lot of fun and helps shape your thinking on all issues to be more logical. There is a prospect for change in this area for the next generation but that is true for most fields and understanding how to program will always be useful."
On top of all this, Gates noted that he thought research into "life-extending and immortality research" was egocentric when one considers the prevalence of life-endangering diseases like malaria and tuberculosis. Gates also wrote that he wished he had spent more time learning foreign languages and shared which gifts he got through Reddit's Secret Santa program.
