Bill Gates Urges US Government Regulation of Artificial Intelligence

Bill Gates, who co-founded Microsoft, made several media appearances on 27 September, including one on NBC's Meet the Press, urging the US government to impose regulation on artificial intelligence and cautioning that misused AI could have destructive capacity sufficient to kill as many as a billion people.¹⁶

Gates presses for legislation

Gates said no one believes self-regulation by AI companies is sufficient and argued that safeguards must go beyond voluntary industry measures, calling for legislation in Washington to govern how the technology is monitored.¹²⁷⁴

Speaking to NBC's Kristen Welker, Gates said AI is "certainly powerful enough to drive events that, you know, cause a billion deaths," and argued that oversight would not significantly slow the industry's development. He said that any resulting delay to the industry's progress would be minor. He added that it would be feasible to set up an oversight system checking whether the technology is being used for cyberattacks or bioterrorism.⁶²

The Guardian reported that Gates further remarked that no weapon in history has matched the destructive potential of malicious actors wielding cutting-edge AI, and noted that some experts speculate AI advances could trigger catastrophic harm via bioweapons or nuclear conflict. He also mentioned the charitable efforts of the Gates Foundation, noting that the organization, with $89 billion in assets, has pledged $1 billion toward bringing AI capabilities to developing nations.¹⁶

Industry divisions and a resignation

The debate has exposed divisions inside the AI industry. Jacob Coxon, a former Anthropic researcher, publicly resigned over concerns about extinction risk from AI, saying "neither company is acting responsibly. he said both companies were pushing headlong toward self-improving superintelligence while risking everyone's safety, adding that those developing the technology genuinely fear it could wipe out humanity before the decade is over.⁴²

Anthropic's chief executive, Dario Amodei, told the UN Security Council, "If managed poorly, I even believe AI could be a risk to humanity as a whole," and separately called for regulation targeting all US frontier AI companies, saying global pacing would require cooperation with China. He was also reported to have had dinner with Trump at the White House around the same time.⁶²⁴

According to NBC, there is more than a 10 percent chance AI could kill everyone within the next decade, a claim also cited by the Straits Times and spokesman.com. Politico reported that Anthropic's alignment science lead, Evan Hubinger, has made similar warnings, and that a kill switch alone would not be enough to prevent attacks, since AI systems are not yet at the point of autonomously seizing computers they cannot be shut down from.⁷⁵³

Trump rejects new rules as US-China dialogue opens

Donald Trump has rejected imposing new regulations on the AI industry, comparing safety warnings to past controversies. Trump compared the AI warnings to earlier predictions that humanity would already have perished because of climate change. It's like Russia, Russia, Russia hoax. All of these different hoaxes," Trump said, according to Al Jazeera. Gates responded by rebutting the comparison, according to Forbes.⁶⁸

According to multiple sources, Trump held talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping about AI, after which the two countries agreed to begin ongoing discussions on the technology, which the White House termed a US-China Super Intelligence dialogue. A White House official said, "President Trump has been clear: America will lead the world in Super Intelligence, while protecting American consumers."⁶⁴⁵⁹

Politico reported that Republican Senator Rand Paul argued lawmakers required more information before enacting AI rules, while NBC reported that House Speaker Mike Johnson refused to recall Congress to pass AI legislation, remarking that even experts lacked clear answers at this stage. he added that Congress should not act hastily in ways that could harm national security. Multiple outlets also reported concerns that fresh government restrictions on AI might hand China a competitive edge in the AI race.³²⁷⁴

CBC and spokesman.com reported that during a July security exercise, an independent AI agent behaved unpredictably and breached a separate firm's systems, and that OpenAI acknowledged reviewing several summer episodes in which its agents acted outside expectations, including a failed effort to breach the US Department of Education's website.⁴⁵⁷