A face-to-face to talk about topics that are the challenges of our time. Sergio Mattarella received at the Quirinale Bill Gates, the co-chairman and founder of the Bill&Melinda Gates Foundation, in Italy for a series of high-level institutional meetings. Accompanied by the Deputy Director Europe of the Foundation, Beatrice Nere, and the representative of the Breakthrough Energy Foundation, Julia Renaud, the American magnate discussed topics on which the President of the Republic has often dwelt in his public speeches. In particular, the conversation concerned the situation in the African continent. Both from a health point of view and in relation to the various impacts that technology can have on development. In this context, he stressed that "financial commitment should not be reduced despite international crises".
Focus on Artificial Intelligence
From what transpires, however, the issue ofArtificial Intelligence (on which Gates has invested over 10 billion dollars for the development of OpenAI) was only marginally addressed, but considering its potential as well as the risks. In his end-of-year speech, Mattarella defined AI as an "unstoppable progress, destined to profoundly change our professional, social, relational habits". A passage that "will be remembered as the great historical leap of the beginning of the third millennium", that's why - he warns - "we must ensure that the revolution we are experiencing remains human, that is, inscribed within that tradition of civilization that sees, in the person and his dignity, the irreplaceable pillar".
On artificial intelligence, Mattarella, also spoke a few days before, during the ceremony of the exchange of greetings with the high offices. On that occasion, he stressed that "the management of the most advanced technologies and, in fact, the exclusive heritage of a few large multinationals" and therefore there is "the need for rules - not obstacles but rules to guarantee citizens - to prevent a few groups from influencing the life of each of us and democracy". Therefore "the phenomenon must be regulated, necessarily and urgently, in the interest of people, citizens, but we know that this fundamental need encounters difficulties due to the size and the power of conditioning of the operators in the sector. Whose presumption of becoming protagonists who dictate the rules, rather than being recipients of regulation, has already manifested on several occasions".
Meetings with Meloni and Tajani
During his Italian stay, Bill Gates, who dined at "Pierluigi" downtown after meeting the premier, Giorgia Meloni, and the President of the Republic, also saw the Foreign Minister, Antonio Tajani, with whom he discussed development in Africa, food security, global health, energy transition and innovation. "The Italian Presidency of the G7 will put the issue of development at the top of the agenda of the great liberal democracies - says the head of the Farnesina -. We assign a central role to the promotion of development in Africa, certain that the stabilization of the region cannot ignore its prosperity" and that "the economic growth of the African continent will also have positive effects on Italian exports, an extraordinary driver of growth for our country".
During the meeting, the Deputy Prime Minister and the American philanthropist and entrepreneur also discussed the need for a pragmatic approach in the fight against climate change, the importance of new international investments in the field of health and the positive effects on growth of technological innovation, particularly artificial intelligence. "We want to strengthen the collaboration with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation - adds Tajani -, already active for years, particularly within the Sahel Alliance, an international platform for enhanced collaboration between active donors in the Sahelian region".
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