Bill Gates warns AI could kill a billion people, urges new laws

Bill Gates warned in an NBC interview that artificial intelligence could cause severe problems much sooner than commonly predicted, potentially triggering events leading to a billion deaths, and he urged legislative action to curb its development. Gates said AI is powerful enough to initiate catastrophic chains of events now, not just in the future, and that new tools in wrong hands pose an unprecedented threat. He argued mandatory government oversight is needed, as self-regulation by AI firms is not credible. AI executives like Sam Altman and Dario Amodei have also called for slowing development, and a former Anthropic employee said workers genuinely fear AI could destroy humanity within a decade. President Donald Trump disagrees, opposing restrictions to boost the US economy and competition with China.