Bill Gates says unchecked AI could ’cause a billion deaths’ in call for regulation | Bill Gates

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

“It takes law enforcement and politicians to be part of the conversation about what safeguards and oversight look like,” the Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist told NBC Meet the Press host Kristen Welker. “And that has to be a mandatory thing.”

Using a term intended to describe a necessary expense of running a business, Gates continued: “It will cause a bit of overhead for the industry – but not a dramatic slowdown in what it does.” »

In another part of the interview — excerpts of which NBC aired in advance — Gates dramatically warned that AI in the wrong hands would be “certainly powerful enough to cause events that, you know, will cause a billion deaths.”

“There has never been a more powerful weapon than the combination of bad people using the latest AI tools,” Gates added, echoing other recent similar warnings from a wide range of tech and political figures.

Furthermore, Gates is generally considered optimistic about the future of humans. Many people reporting or commenting on his conversation with Welker noted that it occurred following a nearly 6,000-word essay he published in late August warning of AI and the potentially deadly ills it poses to humanity on a large scale.

Fellow tech moguls, including Sam Altman and Elon Musk, have joined Gates in calling for a slowdown in the development of AI, which some experts say could precipitate the mass destruction of humans through biological weapons and nuclear war, among other methods.

Meanwhile, Microsoft itself has been challenged for its role in fueling some of the dystopian concerns surrounding AI.

Employees and activists at the company have organized a campaign to get Microsoft to cut ties with the Israeli military, which has used AI tools to kill in Gaza and – alongside US forces – in Iran, according to a Guardian article published Friday.

The essay’s authors, Mohamed Hussein and Granate Kim of the group No Azure for Apartheid, further warned that “the horrors wrought by AI” are also being seen in the United States. For example, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has used AI tools such as Microsoft’s Azure to monitor, arrest and mass deport immigrants, Hussein and Kim wrote.

Gates’ August essay and Sunday interview were two of his first major forays into the public eye since becoming ensnared in the scandal surrounding Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier who pleaded guilty in 2008 to recruiting a minor for prostitution before committing suicide while incarcerated on sex trafficking charges 11 years later.

An external study commissioned by Gates’ philanthropic foundation and released in July determined that he was among a number of staff and leaders at the organization who collectively held about 30 meetings with Epstein between 2011 and 2014.

Gates has not been accused of involvement in Epstein’s admitted or alleged crimes. He said he regretted “every minute” he spent with Epstein and remains chairman of the Gates Foundation, an $89 billion (£65 billion) charity.

In a lighter moment during Welker’s interview with Gates, the host asked him, “Are there ways in which you, professionally or personally, avoid AI and say, ‘I’m not going to consult with it in this case?’ »

Gates, with a chuckle and a smile, responded: “Well, I don’t use it for my personal relationships. I don’t say to myself, ‘Hey, do you like me? Hey, am I a nice guy?’

“So, I’ve never gone down that route, because I’m lucky in terms of family and friends and everything. I don’t socialize with the AI. She knows that I’m a very serious person.”