Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said artificial intelligence is already powerful enough to drive events that could cause 1 billion deaths, and he urged lawmakers to step in.
Key Points:
- Gates said AI tools in the hands of people with ill intent could drive events killing 1 billion people.
- He rejected the idea that AI developers can police themselves and backed new legislation.
- His warning follows a wave of alarm from AI industry insiders who want development to slow down.
Bill Gates AI Warning
Gates made the remarks to host Kristen Welker in an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press," which is set to air Sunday. "AI is certainly powerful enough to drive events that... cause a billion deaths," he said. He described people with ill intent using the latest AI tools as the most powerful weapon the world has ever faced.
Gates focused on misuse by bad actors rather than on AI wiping out humanity.
Asked by Welker whether AI companies can be trusted to regulate themselves, Gates gave a blunt answer.
"No one thinks self-regulation is enough," he said, adding that law enforcement and politicians must help decide what safeguards and monitoring should look like. He said those measures have to be mandatory, and when asked whether Washington should pass legislation, he replied, "Absolutely."
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Anthropic, OpenAI Warnings
The comments come as fears about AI safety spread among the people building the technology. Earlier this month, Jacob Coxon quit his job at Anthropic and accused the company and OpenAI, where he had also worked, of gambling with lives in a race toward superintelligent AI.
Another Anthropic employee put the odds of AI eliminating all humans within the next decade at more than 10%. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei then urged the industry to slow the pace of frontier AI development.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Elon Musk quickly backed the idea, and a recent YouGov/Economist poll found that 69% of Americans see AI as a serious risk of harm.
Europe already has the kind of binding rules Gates described, while the U.S. debate remains open after President Donald Trump dismissed calls to slow AI development earlier this month. Since Aug. 2, the European Commission has had the power to fine providers of general-purpose AI models up to 3% of their global annual turnover, but no enforcement action against a model provider has been reported so far.
Gates has grown more vocal about AI risks in recent months, even as he remains one of the technology's best-known optimists. In an August essay, he warned that bad actors could use increasingly powerful AI for cyberattacks, fraud and disinformation aimed at hospitals, financial institutions, power grids and government systems. He also wrote that AI "will either be the greatest equalizer ever invented, or the worst source of injustice."
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