Bill Gates Warns Unregulated AI Development Could “Cause A Billion Deaths”

As Trump brushes off the need for additional guardrails around artificial intelligence, Bill Gates is sounding the alarm.

In a recent interview, the Microsoft co-founder urged the U.S. government to implement regulations around the development of AI, following a meeting with CEOs of several of biggest AI companies, who agreed it’s necessary to slow down the pace of the growing tech.

“No one thinks self-regulation is enough,” he said on NBC News’ Meet the Press. “You need law enforcement and the politicians to get into the discussion about what safeguards and monitoring look like. And that has to be a required thing. And it will be a little bit of overhead for the industry, but not a dramatic slowing of what they’re doing.”

Gates added, “AI is certainly powerful enough to drive events that, you know, cause a billion deaths. You know, so even though it’s pretty hard to get to 100%, there’s never been a weapon as powerful as the combination of people with ill intent using the latest AI tools.”

Following recent warnings from those working in AI, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order this month to fast-track stringent oversight and control of AI. Convening “a group of world-leading experts” within the next 60 days, the order lays out a discussion of “safety plans” and “an emergency shutoff, or ‘kill switch,’ for frontier models.”

On a federal level, Trump has brushed off concerns about AI as “a hoax,” insisting the U.S. government “already have tremendous CRIMINAL and REGULATORY power” over AI companies.