Bill Gates says it's 'completely irresponsible' for AI to not have safeguards

The Microsoft co-founder said that the more present danger is bad actors with access to AI tools.

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After several CEOs of leading AI companies have agreed on slowing down the pace of AI development, Bill Gates has offered supporting sentiments and called for more regulation and safeguards. In an interview with NBC News' Meet the Press, the Microsoft co-founder said that "it's completely irresponsible not to require every AI to have these safeguards and monitoring capabilities." To that end, Anthropic recently tapped Accenture to act as a third-party evaluator for its latest AI models.

As for other approaches to deal with AI's rapid rate of evolution, California's governor, Gavin Newsom, proposed a "kill switch" as part of a larger solution. When asked about the kill switch approach to curb AI, Gates said that, "I would never want to say that I'm against a kill switch," but added that this approach wouldn't address a more imminent danger. Instead, Gates said the more pressing concern is when bad actors tap into the power of AI to aid with bioterrorism or mass financial fraud incidents.

"The most dangerous thing we're facing right now is people with bad intent using AI," Gates said during the interview. "There's never been a weapon as powerful as the combination of people with ill intent using the latest AI tools."

When it comes to legislation, Gates supported law enforcement and politicians getting into the conversation of what safeguards and monitoring should be incorporated into AI companies. The former Microsoft exec said that this approach would add some overhead to the industry, but it wouldn't be cause a "dramatic slowing of what they're doing."