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Bill Gates's Netflix series offers some dubious ideas about the future

In What's Next? Bill Gates digs into AI, climate, inequality, malaria and more. But the man looms too large for alternative solutions to emerge, says Bethan Ackerley

By Bethan Ackerley

2 October 2024

Bill Gates in What?s Next: The Future with Bill Gates. Cr. Netflix ? 2024

Bill Gates thinks the ultra-rich should give away their wealth, as he does

Rob Liggins/Netflix

What’s Next? The future with Bill Gates
Netflix

When you want to imagine the future, who do you turn to? Friends and family? Science fiction? New Scientist? Now you can check in with Bill Gates, as the Microsoft co-founder and multibillionaire has worked with Netflix on What’s Next? The future with Bill Gates, in which he digs into make-or-break issues: artificial intelligence, misinformation, climate change, income inequality and disease.

The five-part series is uneven, though, and the worst instalment is perhaps the first, “What can…

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