Bill Gates, David Letterman, and the Internet: A Look Back at How We Explain the Future
In 1995, Bill Gates called the Internet “the next big thing.” and skeptics laughed. Today, AI faces similar doubts. What can this tell us about innovation and the future?
The Challenge of Explaining the Future
Imagine it’s 1995—30 years ago. Bill Gates was explaining the Internet to David Letterman. Here’s what he said:
"It's become a place where people are publishing information. So, everybody can have their home page, companies are there, the latest information. That's wild what's going on. You can send electric mail to people. It is the big new thing."
What do you think of his explanation?
Whatever your reaction, hold that thought. Back then, the Internet was exactly what Gates described—but nothing more. It’s incredible how far it has propelled the global economy since that interview.
Why New Technology Faces Skepticism
During the conversation, Letterman mentioned hearing a big announcement: you could listen to baseball games on your computer.
He joked, "I just thought to myself. Does radio ring a bell?"
The laughing audience was with Letterman, not Gates.
It highlights how hard it is to explain something new.
It’s frustrating when you can’t make others share your excitement. People often judge an idea based solely on its first iteration. It’s difficult to get people to imagine something beyond what’s in front of them.
The Parallels Between Internet Growth and AI Progress
Later, Letterman asked if there was anything beyond what we understood about computers. Gates responded:
"Mostly, what we are working on now is the computer being a tool...Eventually, we may figure out how to make the computer think, but that's turned out to be a very tough problem. In fact, we made almost no progress on that. So, nobody knows when that happens. Some people think it'll never happen."
Even today, creating truly ‘thinking’ machines remains one of the hardest problems—despite the rise of large language models (LLMs). This New Yorker article explores the latest breakthroughs in how machines learn, shedding light on what might be possible in the coming decades.
But perhaps we’re less skeptical about the future of AI over the next 30 years than people were about the Internet 30 years ago.
So, what lessons did you take from this?
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