Gates Warns AI Is Powerful Enough to Cause a Billion Deaths

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said artificial intelligence is powerful enough to set in motion events that could cause a billion deaths, RIA Novosti reports.

“AI is certainly powerful enough to drive events that cause a billion deaths,” he told NBC’s Meet the Press. Humanity, he added, has never had a weapon as powerful as “the combination of people with ill intent using the latest AI tools.”

Gates also argued that self-regulation is not enough and that statutory limits on the use of AI are needed.

Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei had earlier called for a slower pace in developing more powerful AI models on safety grounds. Elon Musk, who controls SpaceX and xAI, and OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman have both endorsed that idea.

A Politico survey published this week found that about half of respondents in the United States, Canada and several European countries support slowing the pace of AI development.