[ale] Bill Gates interview NYT

[lollipopman691]

I am sending this to the New York Times re the latest Sunday Magazine, which features a softball interview with mr. Bill Gates..


David Wallace Wells
New York Times Magazine
letters at nytimes.com

Your interview with Bill Gates in this week's New York Times magazine
was filled with softball questions. It avoided the real difficulties
with Mr. Gates's contributions both to software and to charity.  I am quite sure you're familiar with Mr. Gates' famous letter to hobbyists ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists ). Here are some questions I would've been more interested in having answered.

   * Who gets to make vaccines for the third world?  You are on    record saying that COVID vaccines should remain proprietary, with royalties going to the biggest drug companies in the world. How do you feel now about malaria drugs, or filariasis drugs?

   * Unlike hybrid plants, GMO seeds can be made to breed true. Should third-world farmers pay royalties to the first-world companies who develop those seeds after the first crop is in?  Are
those companies within their rights to engineer genetic traps into GMO seeds which will prevent farmers from planting seeds saved from their own crops? Are they within their rights to engineer seeds which require tailored chemicals available only from them to germinate or to grow?

   * When local-language artificial intelligence tools lie to ("hallucinate") farmers or businessmen about best practices and those people lose their livelihoods or savings, who pays? Does anyone?

Sadly, none of these questions made it into the interview.