Bill Gates Warns AI Could Drive Events Causing One Billion Deaths

Washington — Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has warned that artificial intelligence could become powerful enough to drive events resulting in one billion deaths, as debate intensifies in Washington over how aggressively governments should regulate advanced AI systems.

Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Gates said AI differs fundamentally from earlier technological advances because of how quickly its capabilities are improving.

“This is truly an evolutionary event,” Gates said. “We have created an intelligent species that, in many respects, is already smarter than we are, and over the next several years at kind of exponentially improving level will be insanely smarter than we are.”

Asked whether AI could pose an existential threat, Gates said, “AI is certainly powerful enough to drive events that, you know, cause a billion deaths.”

“There’s never been a weapon as powerful as the combination of people with ill intent using the latest AI tools,” he added.

Gates said governments currently lack enough technical expertise to identify dangerous thresholds involving biological attacks, cyberattacks and other potential uses of advanced AI. He also argued that voluntary industry safeguards would not be sufficient.

“No one thinks self-regulation is enough,” Gates said.

He called for legislation requiring safety measures and monitoring systems, saying such rules would add some costs for companies but would not significantly slow technological development.

“It’s completely irresponsible not to require every AI to have these safeguards and monitoring capabilities,” Gates said.

His comments came as Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat whose district includes part of Silicon Valley, called for a verifiable U.S.-China agreement banning AI systems capable of independently improving themselves.

Khanna said legislation backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Greg Casar would prohibit recursive self-improving AI until adequate safeguards are established.

“That is basically AI that isn’t being trained anymore by human beings. It’s AI that can train itself. And that is a real risk of losing human control,” Khanna told NBC.

Khanna said the United States and China should create a working group of technologists and negotiate common restrictions on the most advanced systems.

“Banning self-recursive self-improving AI should not be controversial,” he said. “And I do believe the United States can lead on a treaty that is both enforceable and verifiable where we ban recursive self-improving AI, and we have some monitoring of these frontier labs.”

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz said Washington and Beijing had agreed to establish a dialogue on superintelligence following President Donald Trump’s summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Waltz told CNN that experts from both countries would discuss potential guardrails in areas including biological weapons research and nuclear systems.

“With the United States and China so much further ahead than the rest of the world when it comes to these frontier models, I think the world should see that as a positive thing,” Waltz said.

Attorney General Todd Blanche, however, warned against regulations that could weaken U.S. competitiveness in artificial intelligence. He told ABC that existing criminal and civil laws already give authorities tools to act when AI is used to commit crimes.

“The answer isn’t always more laws, more laws, more laws,” Blanche said.

He said companies could adjust or restrict their systems as problems emerge and cautioned against rules that could reduce America’s technological lead.

“The answer is not to just try to — all of a sudden try to regulate this in a way that will make us second or third place in the world as far as being the leaders in this space,” Blanche said.

India, meanwhile, is rapidly expanding the use of AI in public services, healthcare, agriculture, education and digital commerce. New Delhi has also emphasized that AI governance should promote safety, accountability and equitable access without unnecessarily restricting innovation in developing economies. (Source: IANS)