Bill Gates Says AI Companies Can’t Police Themselves, Calls for Washington to Mandate Safeguards

Bill Gates is calling for the U.S. government to take a more active role in overseeing artificial intelligence, arguing that voluntary safeguards adopted by technology companies are not enough to address the potentially enormous risks posed by increasingly powerful AI systems.

"No one thinks self-regulation is enough," the Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist told NBC News' "Meet the Press" in an interview conducted Wednesday and scheduled to air in full Sunday. Asked by moderator Kristen Welker whether Congress needs to pass legislation governing AI, Gates was unequivocal.

"Absolutely," he said. "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," he added.

Earlier this month, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei agreed that the race toward increasingly powerful AI systems should slow. Anthropic's Amodei has gone further, arguing that voluntary cooperation between laboratories cannot be the only mechanism for controlling frontier AI.

In a recent essay, Amodei called for regulation covering all U.S. frontier AI companies, including companies unwilling to voluntarily participate in efforts to slow development. He also argued that effective global controls would ultimately require cooperation with China.

Altman, meanwhile, called this week for international standards while speaking at the United Nations, including systems for measuring AI capabilities, assessing risks, evaluating safeguards, and maintaining meaningful human oversight.

Gates said the danger is not limited to a hypothetical future in which artificial intelligence surpasses human capabilities. He argued that today's technology already creates significant risks if placed in the wrong hands.

"AI is certainly powerful enough to drive events that, you know, cause a billion deaths," Gates said. "There's never been a weapon as powerful as the combination of people with ill intent using the latest AI tools."

The push for government oversight, however, is far from unanimous. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has rejected the idea that AI laboratories need industrywide coordination. In an NBC News interview published Thursday, Zuckerberg argued that individual companies should determine when additional safety work is necessary before releasing new technology.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has also expressed caution about Congress moving too quickly. The Louisiana Republican previously said lawmakers need safeguards against AI risks but argued that Congress should not rush into legislation that could harm U.S. national security or technological competitiveness.

California Governor Gavin Newsom recently signed an executive order establishing a panel of experts to develop recommendations for strengthening the state's AI safety laws. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul have also announced initiatives aimed at increasing oversight of AI and its infrastructure.

Microsoft President Brad Smith this week argued that companies should not use the absence of federal rules as an excuse to continue racing toward more powerful systems without adequate safeguards.

Speaking at a United Nations session, Smith compared AI development to airplane manufacturing. If engineers warned that a new aircraft could crash and kill passengers, he argued, a company would not reasonably respond that winning the race to release it mattered more than ensuring its safety.