Bill Gates on AI: "No One Thinks Self-Regulation Is Enough"--We Need Legislation
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2026/09/27/bill_gates_ai_could_be_more_difficult_to_contain_than_nuclear_weapons_could_kill_a_billion_people.html

In an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press," Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates says self-regulation of AI companies is not enough to mitigate its risks.


NBC NEWS: This week, CEOs of America's top AI companies warned the United Nations their trillion-dollar technology, quote, "could be a risk to humanity as a whole."

It's a warning Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates shares.

He says the decisions that are made right now could determine both the best and worst outcomes of the AI revolution.

We sat down just blocks from the U.N. General Assembly to talk about what comes next.

Let's talk about this moment in AI development.

You are one of the voices who has been warning about the potential risks. You wrote in August, quote, "AI will either be the greatest equalizer ever invented or the worst source of injustice."

How serious are the risks posed by AI, do you believe?

BILL GATES: Well, AI is not just a new technology.

That's why people who say, "Okay, past technologies, there was all this worry. You know, by and large, it all worked out, so maybe this time all these warnings that we have to shape it intentionally are unnecessary."

This is truly an evolutionary event.

We have created an intelligent species that, in many respects, is already smarter than we are and, over the next several years, at kind of an exponentially improving level, will be insanely smarter than we are.

The ability to transfer knowledge - there are no sort of individual boundaries like humans having to educate each other.

And so I can't say strongly enough how much society - not just the companies, but every academic, think tank, voter, policymaker - need to really engage on how we want to shape this technology.

There is no such thing as being too focused on accelerating the good potential and minimizing some truly horrific bad things that could happen.

[UNIDENTIFIED HOST]: Do you believe AI is powerful enough to end all of humanity?

BILL GATES: AI is certainly powerful enough to drive events that cause a billion deaths.

So even though it's pretty hard to get to 100%, there has never been a weapon as powerful as the combination of people with ill intent using the latest AI tools.

And it's great that there is this discussion, with the industry almost against their interest, admitting these things.

The problem is that the rest of the world is either discounting this or just thinking of this as a competition, and it's very scary that we don't have, you know, all of the thinkers saying, "How do we want to shape this?"

[UNIDENTIFIED HOST]: You take me to my next question, which is the debate about what to do.

There is a debate over: Should there be a kill switch that is imposed? Others are suggesting a total pause, as you note, on AI development, and some say companies can regulate themselves.

How do you believe AI should be regulated?

BILL GATES: Well, unfortunately, most dangerous technologies, the government understands because they funded the research or they're an important customer, for nuclear bombs or rockets or things like that.

And AI has emerged from the private sector, and so the depth of understanding of these dangerous thresholds that were crossed literally this year - biotech capabilities, cyberattack capability, and others - you have so little expertise in the government.

And because it's cast in this nationalistic, you know, U.S.-versus-them type thing, you have people saying, "Let's go full speed ahead."

It's completely irresponsible not to require every AI to have these safeguards and monitoring capabilities.

And it only is a question of: Do you do it now?