{"id":907348,"date":"2026-09-27T12:14:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-27T12:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/907348\/"},"modified":"2026-09-27T12:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T12:14:08","slug":"bill-gates-says-unchecked-ai-could-cause-a-billion-deaths-in-call-for-regulation-bill-gates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/907348\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Gates says unchecked AI could \u2018cause a billion deaths\u2019 in call for regulation | Bill Gates"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bill Gates<\/a> has called on the US\u2019s federal legislators and law enforcers to regulate the development of artificial intelligence (AI), saying in an interview airing on Sunday that the technology left unchecked could cause \u201ca billion deaths\u201d and \u201cno one thinks self-regulation is enough\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need law enforcement and the politicians to get into the discussion about what safeguards and monitoring look like,\u201d the Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist said<\/a> to Kristen Welker, the NBC Meet the Press host. \u201cAnd that has to be a required thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Using a term meant to describe an expense required to run a business, Gates continued: \u201cIt will be a little bit of overhead for the industry \u2013 but not a dramatic slowing of what they\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another portion of the interview \u2013 excerpts<\/a> of which NBC circulated in advance \u2013 saw Gates dramatically admonish that AI in the wrong hands would be \u201ccertainly powerful enough to drive events that, you know, cause a billion deaths\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s never been a weapon as powerful as the combination of people with ill intent using the latest AI tools,\u201d Gates added, echoing other recent similar warnings<\/a> by a wide array of tech and political figures.<\/p>\n

Gates otherwise is generally regarded as optimistic about humans\u2019 future. Many reporting or commenting on his conversation with Welker noted that it occurred in the wake of a nearly 6,000-word essay that he published in late August warning about AI and the potentially lethal ills it poses to humanity on a large scale.<\/p>\n

His fellow tech moguls including Sam Altman<\/a> and Elon Musk<\/a> have joined Gates in calling for a slowdown of the development of AI, which some experts theorize<\/a> could precipitate the mass destruction of humans through bioweapons and nuclear war, among other methods.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Microsoft<\/a> itself has been challenged for having a role in stoking some of the dystopian concerns surrounding AI.<\/p>\n

Company employees and activists have organized a campaign aimed at getting Microsoft to cut ties with the Israeli military, which has used AI tools to kill in Gaza and \u2013 alongside US forces \u2013 in Iran, according to a Guardian essay<\/a> published on Friday.<\/p>\n

The essay\u2019s authors, Mohamed Hussein and Granate Kim of the No Azure for Apartheid group, furthermore warned that \u201chorrors wrought by AI\u201d are also being seen in the US. For instance, the US Department of Homeland Security has used AI tools such as Microsoft\u2019s Azure to monitor, arrest and deport immigrants<\/a> en masse, Hussein and Kim wrote.<\/p>\n

Gates\u2019s essay in August and interview on Sunday were two of his first major forays into the public since becoming ensnared in the scandal surrounding Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier who pleaded guilty in 2008 to procuring a minor for prostitution before dying by suicide while incarcerated on sex-trafficking charges 11 years later.<\/p>\n

An external review commissioned by Gates\u2019s philanthropic foundation and released in July determined<\/a> that he was among a number of organization staffers and leaders who had collectively held about 30 meetings with Epstein from 2011 to 2014.<\/p>\n

Gates has not been accused of involvement in Epstein\u2019s admitted or alleged crimes. He has said he regretted \u201cevery minute\u201d he spent with Epstein, and remains the chair of the $89bn (\u00a365bn) Gates Foundation charity.<\/p>\n

In a lighter moment during Welker\u2019s interview with Gates, the host asked<\/a> him: \u201cAre there any ways in which you, professionally or personally, avoid AI and say that: \u2018I\u2019m not going to consult with it in this instance?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Gates, with a chuckle and a smile, replied: \u201cWell, I\u2019m not using it for my personal relationships. I\u2019m not like: \u2018Hey, do you like me? Hey, am I a nice guy?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I just never went down that path, because I\u2019m lucky in terms of my family, friends and everything. I don\u2019t socialize with the AI. It knows I\u2019m a very serious person.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bill Gates has called on the US\u2019s federal legislators and law enforcers to regulate the development of artificial…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":907349,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,105],"class_list":["post-907348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=907348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/907349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=907348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=907348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=907348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}