Excellent new Bill Gates essay on the urgency of having a coherent AI plan

Substack · Watch/Read · (gathered 2026-08-29)

• Gary Marcus highlights a new Bill Gates essay emphasizing the urgent need for a coherent, systematic societal plan to address AI, echoing Marcus’s “Taming Silicon Valley” thesis on the critical importance of decisions made now.
• Gates warns of AI risks including bioterrorism, deepfakes, disinformation, cyberattacks, and the potential to stunt children’s development, enabling “criminals with very limited skills” to target victims at any scale.
• The essay calls for civil society (and independent scientists, per Marcus) to be centrally involved in devising domestic and international frameworks, alongside rebalancing tax structures and incentives to keep humans employed.
• The content underscores an urgent lack of a comprehensive societal plan for AI, warning that the time to “tame Silicon Valley” and mitigate these pervasive risks is now.