The cofounder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, believes that artificial intelligence could eventually be responsible for “one billion deaths.” The statement was made in an NBC interview on Friday. He vehemently defended the need for the technology to be regulated.
“AI is certainly powerful enough to trigger events that cause one billion deaths,” he said, when asked whether he believed AI was powerful enough to bring about the end of humanity.
“There has never been a weapon as powerful as the combination of people with ill intentions using the latest AI tools,” the American billionaire stated.
Questioned about the need for legislation to regulate AI, Gates replied: “No one believes that self-regulation is sufficient.”
“Law enforcement authorities and politicians must participate in the discussion about how safeguards and monitoring mechanisms should be,” he added.
The debate over AI regulation gained a new chapter after sector-leading companies, including OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, and Anthropic, said they were willing to slow the development of the technology following a series of cybersecurity breaches.
