Gates made his first public comments since an open letter sparked a debate about the future of the technology.
The technologist-turned-philanthropist said it would be better to focus on how best to use the developments in AI, as it was hard to understand how a pause could work globally.
His interview with Reuters comes after an open letter, published last week and co-signed by Elon Musk and more than 1,000 AI experts, demanding an urgent pause in the development of systems "more powerful" than Microsoft-backed OpenAI`s new GPT-4, which can hold human-like conversation, compose songs and summarise lengthy documents.
The experts, including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, said in the letter the potential risks and benefits to society need to be assessed.
"I don`t think asking one particular group to pause solves the challenges," Gates said recently.
"Clearly there`s huge benefits to these things. What we need to do is identify the tricky areas."
While currently focused full-time on the philanthropic Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Gates has been a bullish supporter of AI and described it as revolutionary as the Internet or mobile phones.
In a blog titled "The Age of AI has begun" which was published on March 21, a day before the open letter, Gates said he believes AI should be used to help reduce some of the world`s worst inequities.
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