Bill Gates says that the only way to hire and keep AI talent is to let them share their research openly: 'You can completely ignore whoever tries to close their system'

As tensions rise between the US and China, there's been some chatter of an AI arms race that would see each country scrambling to get and retain some kind of advantage in the field. But Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, who spoke at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Beijing on Thursday, says he has some difficulty understanding how separating or limiting the sharing of scientific research would even work. "You can't, you know, carry around little notes to each other saying don't give this to someone because their grandmother is Chinese," he said. Gates said that the US has long benefitted from openly sharing scientific research, and that it remains a huge advantage, especially within the field of artificial intelligence. "AI is very hard to put back in the bottle and whoever has the open system will so vastly get ahead," Gates said.