You can add billionaire Bill Gates to the list of “doomers” predicting that unless artificial intelligence is checked, a catastrophe of unthinkable proportions is possible.
The Microsoft co-founder appeared on this week’s edition of NBC News Sunday morning flagship “Meet the Press,” where he added his influential voice to those calling for the government to regulate AI amid rapidly growing concern that it could spin beyond the ability of humans to control it and into the territory of the most dystopian science fiction tales.
Gates had previously cautioned that AI could be either the “greatest equalizer” or “worst source of injustice” without human safeguards and didn’t go so far as alarmists who claim that the rapidly evolving technology could end humanity, but he warned that it could “drive” a cataclysm resulting in a billion dead bodies.
The chilling prediction was first revealed in a teaser for the full MTP interview that was posted online last week.
🚨 Bill Gates predicts that AI could “drive events that cause a billion deaths” pic.twitter.com/o1k6KqAkS4
— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) September 25, 2026
“AI is certainly powerful enough to drive events that, you know, cause a billion deaths,” he told host Kristen Welker. “You know, so even though it’s pretty hard to get to 100 percent, there’s 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’s this discussion with the industry, almost against their interest, admitting these things,” Gates continued. “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 all of the thinkers saying, “How do we want to shape this?”
When asked by Welker for his opinion on how he would propose that AI be regulated, Gates likened the technology to nuclear weapons.
“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. AI has emerged from the private sector, and so the depth of understanding of these dangerous thresholds that were crossed literally this year, bio-attack capability, cyber attack capability and others, you have so little expertise in the government,” he responded.
“And, you know, because it’s cast in this nationalistic, you know, us versus them type thing, you have people who are saying, “Well, let’s just 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?” Gates added.
“Absolutely,” he said when Welker asked if AI regulation needs to come from Washington. “You need law enforcement and the politicians to get into the discussion about what safeguards and monitoring look like. And that has to be a required thing. And it will be a little bit of overhead for the industry, but not a dramatic slowing of what they’re doing.”
“Even Bill Gates, one of the most influential figures in the history of technology, is now admitting the dangers of artificial intelligence. He warns that AI could drive events causing a billion deaths and that people with ill intent have never held a more powerful weapon. At this point, the only people still denying the reality of the situation are those being paid by Big AI to gaslight the American people,” Republican National Committee (RNC) member and Humans First Chairwoman Amy Kremer told Fox News Digital
The activist billionaire’s words put him at odds with President Donald J. Trump, an AI champion who has scoffed at warnings as so much malarkey, suggesting that critics of the technology and data centers are guilty of treason.
“There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China. WHOEVER WINS AI, WINS! We are leading China, and all others, and will continue to do so. Conspiracy Theorists, Treasonists, Traitors, and Leakers, BEWARE!” Trump wrote on Truth Social earlier this month.
The president also called AI warnings a “hoax” and has taken it upon himself to rebrand AI as “Super Intelligence,” although a name change isn’t likely to stifle the technology’s legion of critics, which apparently now includes Bill Gates.
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