Bill Gates pulled out of a major artificial intelligence summit in New Delhi just hours before he was to give a keynote speech on Thursday, according to the event’s organizers, following renewed media scrutiny of his past association with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein after a series of U.S. Justice Department emails came to light.
The last-minute withdrawal of one of the summit’s biggest names removed him from the government-supported AI Impact Summit, which India has touted as a platform to help set the global agenda on artificial intelligence investment and governance.
A spokesperson for the philanthropic organization founded by Bill Gates explained that he pulled out of the event to keep the focus on the summit’s agenda.
The last-minute cancellation took away one of the most high-profile speakers from the government-supported AI Impact Summit, which India has used as a platform to set the global agenda on artificial intelligence investment and governance.
A representative for the philanthropic organization founded by Bill Gates said that the reason for the cancellation was to keep the focus on the summit’s agenda and not on something happening outside of it.
Emails made public last month by the U.S. Department of Justice were between Epstein and employees of the Gates Foundation, leading to further questions about the billionaire’s past ties with the financier.
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Gates has previously admitted to meeting Epstein and said that the meetings were only about philanthropy and that he made a mistake by doing so.
“Bill Gates will not be speaking to ensure the focus remains on the AI Summit’s key priorities,” said a spokesperson for the foundation.
The group failed to answer questions about whether the withdrawal was directly related to the release of the emails.
Only days before, the foundation had announced that Gates would attend as scheduled.
The speaker spot was filled by Ankur Vora, the foundation’s chief strategy officer and regional head for Africa and India. Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, was to speak at the summit along with top executives from the world’s top technology companies.
However, the e conference had already lost another high-profile appearance when Jensen Huang, the chief executive of Nvidia, cancelled earlier in the week. The organizers did not give any reasons for his withdrawal.
However, the setbacks notwithstanding, the summit was used by senior political leaders to lay out India’s plans to become a leading voice in setting the rules for new AI systems, especially in developing countries.
At the opening session, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called on technology firms to focus on protecting younger users as artificial intelligence technology becomes more widespread.
“We must be even more vigilant about children’s safety. Just as a school syllabus is curated, the AI space should also be child- and family-guided,” Modi said at a joint appearance with French President Emmanuel Macron, who was a guest leader.
The “New Delhi Frontier AI Commitments” was launched, and to celebrate, executives from leading technology companies appeared on stage with political leaders.
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Photos from the event showed industry leaders lifting interlocked hands in a gesture of unity, although two competing executives, Sam Altman and Dario Amodei, stood together but did not join in the gesture.
Altman told the audience that the adoption rate of ChatGPT had grown very quickly in India, with the service being used by 100 million people each week.
This is a reflection of the fact that India is one of the fastest-growing markets for generative AI services.
The summit also included the participation of firms such as Google, whose CEO Sundar Pichai was scheduled to speak among the lineup of keynote speakers, in addition to other CEOs of newer firms that focus on AI.
Although investment announcements were the main focus of the event’s official communication, some of the opening days of the summit were marred by logistical issues that included long queues and traffic congestion, among other issues, which were criticized by some of the participants who felt that the event planning did not meet the expectations of a global event.
The government has not commented on the operational issues.
The Indian government has framed the summit as the “first major AI gathering in the Global South,” as part of a wider agenda to increase its own influence in debates that have hitherto been dominated by the United States and Europe.
The government’s view is that developing countries must have a greater say in setting safety and access parameters for artificial intelligence technologies as they become increasingly embedded in economies.
The controversy over Gates’ withdrawal came against this wider diplomatic and commercial background, briefly diverting attention away from debates and investment announcements that had been intended to be the focus.