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Bill Gates once heralded the age of AI as an optimist, writing in July 2023 that \u201cthe risks of AI are real but manageable.\u201d But three years later, the Microsoft cofounder and the onetime world\u2019s richest man is warning that bad actors can use the technology to kill on a mass scale.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAI is certainly powerful enough to drive events that cause a billion deaths,\u201d Gates said in a Meet the Press interview on Sunday. \u201cThere\u2019s never been a weapon as powerful as the combination of people with ill intent using the latest AI tools.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gates has emerged as a thought leader on biological threats, dating back to years before ChatGPT came out, warning that the world was unprepared for a fast-spreading illness such as Ebola in a 2015 TED Talk and then writing How to Prevent the Next Pandemic after COVID-19 immobilized governments\u2019 response systems. This instinct was evident as he talked to the New York Times\u2019 Ezra Klein on Tuesday about his concern that AI is particularly dangerous with regard to biological weapons.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cA.I. has crossed the threshold that its ability to empower a bioterrorist to kill hundreds of millions\u2014that exists today,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Gates also said that AI advances can help researchers design new molecules and potentially make a pathogen \u201cworse than smallpox,\u201d which in the past required the resources of a nation state but is now possible for small groups to carry out with AI.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the most dangerous thing that humans have ever gone near,\u201d he said. \u201cThis makes nuclear weapons look like nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gates said the \u201cimminent risk\u201d of bad actors using AI outweighs the more long-term one of AI systems slipping out of human control. He said it\u2019s a risk compounded by governments lacking the technical expertise they historically developed around nuclear weapons because AI came out of the private sector. He told Meet the Press the government should require AI developers to build monitoring and safeguards into their systems, including records that allow authorities to see how models are being used.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one thinks self-regulation is enough,\u201d Gates said.<\/p>\n
But he also doesn\u2019t think a kill switch is sufficient because AI hasn\u2019t reached a point where it can seize computers and resist shut down attempts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re trying to moderate the bad behavior, you need insight and records of what\u2019s being done, so the kill switches alone would not prevent these tragedies,\u201d Gates said.<\/p>\n
Frontier labs hitting the brakes<\/p>\n
Gates\u2019s immediate concern is human misuse, but the industry is also wrestling with a different fear: AI systems behaving in ways their creators cannot control.<\/p>\n
Former OpenAI researcher Jacob Coxon resigned from Anthropic earlier this month and accused both leading AI labs of \u201cracing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives.\u201d Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for pacing the frontier in an essay this month, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman also acknowledged the industry might need to slow its frontier model training to align with safety measures.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cCapabilities, alignment, monitoring, and safety have to progress together,\u201d Altman told Fortune\u2019s Alyson Shontell on Sept. 15.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And both companies hit the brakes when their safety systems have fallen behind. OpenAI paused training its models for the second time in less than three months while investigating how to prevent \u201crogue\u201d behavior, cases in which AI agents acted outside the boundaries researchers had set for them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Anthropic took similar steps. The lab temporarily halted training of some unreleased models after finding out Claude Mythos 5 took unauthorized actions during a U.K. AI Security Institute cybersecurity test. In April, Anthropic restricted access to Mythos because of its ability to launch cyberattacks. When Anthropic released Claude Opus 5.5 last week, the first model it launched after Amodei called for pacing the frontier, the AI lab said outside safety auditors Frontier Design and METR evaluated the model before its debut.<\/p>\n
But for Gates, leaving safety decisions about AI in the hands of the companies developing it isn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n
\u201cPart of the reason I\u2019m speaking so loudly\u2014as loud as I can\u2014is that you can\u2019t rely on the industry to self-regulate here,\u201d he told The New York Times. \u201cI mean, it\u2019s just insane.\u201d<\/p>\n
#billion #deaths #Bill #Gates #warns #wrong #hands #kill #switch #selfregulation #wont<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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