Artificial Intelligence Warning from Bill Gates: "It Could Cause a Billion Deaths"

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said in an interview with NBC News' 'Meet the Press' program on Friday that artificial intelligence is powerful enough to cause one billion deaths if used by malicious people.

The billionaire urged Washington to enact laws regulating artificial intelligence development, emphasizing that governments should not rely on technology companies to regulate themselves.

'POWERFUL ENOUGH TO TRIGGER DEATHS'

Gates evaluated, "Artificial intelligence is powerful enough to trigger events that could lead to a billion deaths. Although it is very difficult to reach 100 percent, there has never been a weapon as powerful as the combination of malicious people using the latest artificial intelligence tools."

Gates' warning comes just days after OpenAI's Sam Altman and Anthropic's Dario Amodei renewed calls for stronger government crackdowns on the technology following a spate of incidents involving AI agents getting out of control in recent months.

'BIGGER THAN THE PANDEMIC'

Last month, Gates warned that "Artificial intelligence will either be the greatest equalizer ever invented, or it will be the greatest source of injustice" and argued that the risk of "a group designing a bioterrorism weapon using open source artificial intelligence tools" is greater than a pandemic arising from natural causes.