Gates doesn't discuss weaponizing AI to silence vaccine skepticism in video clip

What's the claim?

"Dangerous man," says the text overlay on a video (archived here) of Microsoft founder Bill Gates circulating on social media.

The video features a clip from an interview in which Gates talks about misinformation and AI, and the social media post claims that "Bill Gates is planning to weaponize AI to silence anyone opposing his vaccine."

The footage comes from a recent CNBC interview. However, Gates makes no specific suggestions about "weaponizing" AI to combat vaccine skepticism in the clip.

In fact

In the CNBC interview clip, Gates refers to AI before talking about misinformation.

"We have contexts where we want correct information like, hopefully, when we want medical advice, but then we kind of like, you know, in our community and enclave, having shared views that kind of pull us together," Gates says before the video cuts to images of Gates with the overlaid text: "Ultimately, Gates isn't entirely sure how to stop the spread of misinformation."

It then cuts back to the interview, with Gates saying, "We should have free speech, but if you are inciting violence, if you are causing people not to take vaccines, you know, where are those boundaries? That even the U.S. should, you know, have rules, and then, if you have rules, you know, what is it – is it some AI that encodes those rules because you have billions of activity and you know if you catch it a day later the harm is done." 

The interview was published in the lead-up to the release of a Netflix docuseries in which Gates investigates challenges to future society. The first episode, titled "What can AI do for us/to us?", puts into perspective both the technology's possibilities and challenges. 

The second episode deals with misinformation and does, at one point, touch on how misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccines might have led to people dying after refusing to get vaccinated. Like Gates in the CNBC interview, the episode discusses the dilemma of protecting free speech while fighting harmful misinformation. 

Gates has long been a target of a number of conspiracy theories. One such theory that proliferated during the COVID-19 pandemic was that Gates was part of a plot to use the COVID-19 vaccine with the intention to kill people to combat overpopulation.

Gates has previously advocated for using AI in combating misinformation like deepfakes, but not specifically in relation to vaccines.

Logically Facts has reached out to the Gates Foundation for comment. 

The verdict

The CNBC clip featuring Bill Gates doesn't include any specific suggestions about "weaponizing" AI to combat vaccine skepticism. Gates talks about the dilemma of protecting free speech while fighting harmful misinformation. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.