Bill Gates warns AI could kill 1 billion people, urges restrictions

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has warned that artificial intelligence is powerful enough to kill a billion people if it falls into the wrong hands, urging tougher government regulation of the technology. According to the New York Post, Gates made the comments in an interview with NBC News’ Kristen Welker for “Meet the Press,” set to air Sunday.

“AI is certainly powerful enough to drive events that cause a billion deaths,” Gates said. “So even though it’s pretty hard to get to 100% [of humanity], there’s never been a weapon as powerful as the combination of people with ill intent using the latest AI tools.”

Gates said Washington “absolutely” needed to pass federal legislation to establish safeguards and monitoring of AI’s advances, adding, “No one thinks self-regulation is enough.” He said such legislation would add “a little bit of overhead for the industry, but not a dramatic slowing of what they’re doing.”

The billionaire philanthropist also distinguished between near-term risks of AI misuse by terrorists or rogue states and longer-term “existential risk” warnings raised by AI safety researchers, including a former Anthropic employee who said many AI developers believe the technology could “kill us all by the end of the decade.”

The debate over AI safety has intensified in recent weeks following high-profile cybersecurity incidents that raised doubts about frontier AI labs’ ability to control their models, including reports that an OpenAI system had hacked an Australian public health service website.