In his manifesto, Gates emphasizes that wealthy countries must show generosity. He presents alarming data: in 2025, there was an increase in child mortality for the first time in a hundred years — from 4.6 to 4.8 million cases. The cause of this phenomenon is the decrease in international aid for developing countries. If healthcare funding is reduced by 20%, an additional 12 million children will die by 2045. Even the most generous nations allocate less than 1% of their GDP to international aid.
Gates also discusses the need to scale technologies to achieve equality. He highlights three key areas. In the climate sector, market mechanisms do not work without the introduction of a global carbon tax, which is why his Breakthrough Energy fund plans to invest billions in innovations in aviation and industry. In medicine, algorithms are already assisting in the early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, which could save billions of dollars. The Gates Foundation has allocated $1.4 billion (about 110 billion rubles) to support farmers, providing them with weather forecasts, price predictions, and crop disease information with greater accuracy than wealthier agriculturalists. In education, personalized learning through machine learning is being tested, which is already changing students' approaches in New Jersey.
Speaking about the potential negative consequences of the accelerated adoption of technologies, Gates expresses doubt that development can slow down. He believes that algorithms and robots are capable of surpassing human abilities without limits. Among the main threats in the coming years, he identifies bioterrorism and a potential collapse of the labor market. Gates compares the current situation to the COVID-19 pandemic: if the world had prepared in advance, there would have been significantly less suffering. However, the threat has now increased — non-state groups may use open technologies to create biological weapons.
The issue of employment also raises concerns. Programmers are already working significantly faster thanks to neural networks, which reduces software development costs and, paradoxically, increases demand for it, as was the case with computing. However, warehouse workers and call center operators may face serious challenges when algorithms begin to perform their tasks. This effect is expected to unfold over the next five years, and 2026 will be a time for policymakers to prepare for wealth redistribution.
Despite the pessimistic forecasts, Gates remains hopeful for humanity, believing in its ability to anticipate difficulties and care for one another. History has many examples of people acting not out of selfish motives but for the common good. These qualities form the basis of his optimism regarding the future progress of humanity.
