Bill Gates says unchecked AI could cause ‘a billion deaths’, calls for oversight

Bill Gates has called on federal lawmakers and U.S. law enforcement authorities to regulate the development of artificial intelligence (AI). In an interview he said that, if left unchecked, the technology could cause “a billion deaths” and that “no one thinks self-regulation is enough.”

“Law enforcement and politicians need to be involved in the discussion about what safeguards and oversight should look like,” the Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist told Kristen Welker, moderator of NBC’s Meet the Press. “And this should be a requirement,” he added.

In another part of the interview — excerpts of which NBC published in advance — Gates issued a stark warning, saying AI in the wrong hands would be “certainly powerful enough to drive events that, as you know, could cause a billion deaths.” “There has never been a weapon as powerful as the combination of people with bad intentions using the latest AI tools,” Gates added, joining similar warnings recently made by a number of technology and political figures.

Gates is otherwise generally regarded as an optimist about humanity’s future. Many of those who reported or commented on his conversation with Welker noted that it came after a nearly 6,000-word essay he published in late August, warning about AI and the potentially lethal risks it poses to humanity on a broad scale.