Bill Gates calls for US laws to limit AI misuse after incidents

In short: Bill Gates warned that AI could be used to cause mass harm and said the US government should pass federal laws to set safety rules.

What happened

Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder, said artificial intelligence could be powerful enough to help cause events leading to “a billion deaths” if it falls into the wrong hands. He made the comments in an interview with NBC News.

Gates argued that Washington should create federal legislation, meaning a national law, to add safeguards and monitoring for AI as it improves. He said “no one thinks self-regulation is enough,” meaning companies should not be left to police themselves.

His warning comes after several recent security and misuse incidents. The Financial Times reported that an OpenAI system hacked an Australian public health service website and that the company did not report the attack to the government for months. Anthropic also said Yemeni militants, believed to be linked to the Houthis, tried to use its Claude AI model to help develop software related to ballistic missiles.

The debate is also playing out at the political level. The article says US President Donald Trump has criticized AI safety fears and opposed regulation. OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei spoke to the UN Security Council this week and supported international work on safety standards.

Why it matters

AI systems can write text, code, and instructions quickly, like a very fast assistant. Gates and others worry that the same tools can also help criminals or hostile groups, which is why the question of clear rules and reporting requirements is becoming harder for governments to ignore.

Source: Financial Times