AI world populated by a 'sea of dudes,' Gates says

"The thing I want to say to everybody in the room is: We ought to care about women being in computer science," Gates said at a recent ReCode conference, according to Bloomberg Technology. "You want women participating in all of these things because you want a diverse environment creating AI and tech tools and everything we're going to use." Related: Women's computer code is preferred, only if their gender is unknown Melinda Gates' comment came after her husband Bill extolled the virtues of artificial intelligence. "Certainly, it's the most exciting thing going on," he said. It's the big dream that anybody who's ever been in computer science has been thinking about." Pointing out that currently only 17 percent of computer science graduates are women, compared to a previous high of 37 percent, Melinda Gates was making a statement not only about computer science in general, but also how it could matter in the field of artificial intelligence, where rules-based behavior could be shaped predominately by men.