Abstract:
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has warned that the capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) are already “powerful enough” to help cause a significant portion of human deaths. He thus joins a growing number of technology industry leaders and practitioners calling attention to the existential risks that AI may bring.
"AI is certainly powerful enough to drive events that cause, say, a billion people to die," Gates said in an excerpt from an interview that will air this weekend. "There has never been a weapon in history as powerful as the latest AI tools used by people with malicious intentions."
As AI technology advances rapidly, Silicon Valley's warnings about its potentially catastrophic consequences are also increasing. Anthropic PBC employee Jacob Coxon resigned earlier this month and accused two of his former employers, Anthropic and OpenAI, of “gamble with our lives” by “racing toward superintelligent AI.” Another Anthropic employee said that he believes that the probability that AI will cause the extinction of all mankind in the next 10 years is more than 10%.
Gates said in the interview that industry self-regulation alone is not enough. He said: "Law enforcement agencies and politicians need to participate in discussions to clarify what security protection and monitoring measures should be taken, and these measures must be mandatory."
Gates previously pointed out in an article published in August that criminals may use increasingly powerful AI tools to launch cyber attacks, commit fraud, spread false information, and cause other forms of large-scale harm to hospitals, financial institutions, power grids, and government systems.
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