Bill Gates calls for AI regulation, warns of risk of a billion deaths

Bill Gates has called on lawmakers in Washington to regulate the development of artificial intelligence, saying that self-regulation by AI companies is not enough. In an interview with NBC News' "Meet the Press" airing in full on Sunday, the Microsoft co-founder said governments must help oversee the technology.

"No one thinks self-regulation is enough"

Asked whether legislation needs to be passed in Washington, Gates answered plainly: "Absolutely." He said law enforcement and politicians must take part in shaping safeguards and monitoring, and that such oversight should be mandatory for the industry. "It will be a little bit of overhead for the industry, but not a dramatic slowing," he said.

The comments follow weeks of alarm inside the industry: the CEOs of Anthropic and OpenAI agreed this month that the race should slow down. Jacob Coxon, a safety researcher who resigned from Anthropic, said that "neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives."

The risk of "a billion deaths"

Gates did not downplay the long-term danger. "AI is certainly powerful enough to drive events that, you know, cause a billion deaths," he said. "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."

An industry split, a stalled Congress

The companies building the most advanced models are divided. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei argued that pacing works best through regulation covering all U.S. frontier AI companies. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told the United Nations this week that international standards are needed for measuring capabilities and preserving human oversight. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg disagreed: "I don't think that we need some kind of industrywide coordination."

In Washington, House Speaker Mike Johnson declined to bring lawmakers back to pass AI legislation and said he would defer to the companies.

States and Microsoft move first

With federal action stalled, governors are acting. California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order creating a board of experts to plan stronger AI safety laws, and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul released their own plans this week. Microsoft President Brad Smith told a U.N. session that AI companies should not wait for federal rules before slowing down.