Netflix series explores Bill Gates’ views on pressing issues of the future, from AI to climate change

Bill Gates’ desire to find solutions for some of humanity’s most pressing problems is the focus of a new Netflix series premiering today called “What’s Next? The Future with Bill Gates.”

The Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist brings along a host of friends to provide their insights during the five-episode series, including scientists, politicians, thinkers, journalists, medical professionals, artists and more.

“The world is facing a lot of big challenges right now,” Gates says in the trailer above, before those challenges are rattled off: climate change; the promise and risks of artificial intelligence; income inequality; dealing with infectious diseases; misinformation in the age of social media. “I believe we can solve them,” Gates adds.

In one fun snippet, Gates asks the generative AI program ChatGPT to craft a text to his son using Gen Z slang.

“Yo fam, what’s good? How you vibin’?” Gates says as he reads the result back, sounding like a dad who just asked AI for help with slang.

Elsewhere we hear from pop star Lady Gaga, U2 singer Bono, film director James Cameron, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, who pushes Gates to an uncomfortable silence, at least in the trailer, when he says that Gates is among three people who own more wealth than the bottom half of America.

“Is the system working, in your judgement?” Sanders asks Gates, who doesn’t answer in the trailer.

In a post on his Gates Notes blog, Gates said his goal for the show is for it to “inspire more people to have conversations about these important topics. … They’re simply too important to just get pessimistic or put our heads in the sand.”

The series is directed by Morgan Neville, who won an Oscar for the 2014 documentary “20 Feet from Stardom.”

A previous three-part Netflix special called “Inside Bill’s Brain” explored similar territory with an examination of the issues Gates obsesses over juxtaposed with stories of his upbringing, family life and the building of Microsoft.