Bill Gates says getting countries to agree on AI regulations will be harder than Cold War-era nuclear negotiations

Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates on Wednesday called on the U.S. to be a leader in the global regulation of artificial intelligence growth but warned that getting countries to agree on a global framework for AI regulation could be “more difficult” than Cold War-era negotiations on limiting the development of nuclear weapons.

“This is more difficult than that was,” Gates told NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” during a wide-ranging discussion about AI that aired on Sunday.

His remarks came as he spoke about President Donald Trump’s stance against regulating AI. The president earlier this month rejected calls for the federal government to impose guardrails on companies building AI models, saying in a post on Truth Social, “WHOEVER WINS AI, WINS! We are leading China, and all others, and will continue to do so.”

Gates, in Wednesday’s interview, argued that regulating AI companies by imposing monitoring systems would not hamper the U.S. in any race with China to develop superior technology.

“What he said is fine, but I think after he hears from me and other people, including that this does not handicap us in whatever he thinks the nation-state race is, that, you know, we will come to a consensus,” the tech mogul said.

Gates later pointed to other times the U.S. has led the world as an impartial figure in coming up with broad agreements to protect humanity.

“Since World War II, the U.S. should be very proud that when there have been global challenges, we, in a way that was benign, you know, where we had friends and allies coming along with us, you know, aviation safety, ozone layer, nuclear weapons, a lot of things where we were played the fair actor, not aggrandizing whatever our unique strengths were,” he told moderator Kristen Welker. “And AI is one we’re going to have to go back to this, ‘Hey, humanity is all in this together.’”

The Microsoft co-founder’s comments come as concerns about AI reached a fever pitch after Jacob Coxon, a whistleblower who’d recently resigned from Anthropic, made public comments saying, “The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.”

Days after those public remarks, two of the nation’s leading AI company CEOs — Dario Amodei of Anthropic and Sam Altman of OpenAI — agreed that there is a need to slow the pace of AI development amid fears that AI agents will soon be capable of “superintelligence” that outpaces the bounds of human thinking.

In a blog post, Amodei wrote that frontier AI companies must slow down the pace of improvements to AI models but only to a point where the companies still lead ahead of China. He also urged global coordination between democratic and authoritarian governments to create regulations.

In recent weeks, both companies have announced plans to track the behavior of AI agents after OpenAI flagged multiple incidents in which their agents behaved in a concerning way, including by hacking an outside company without being told to do so.

In a post on Truth Social ahead of a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday, Trump wrote, “A big day with President Xi of China. Super Intelligence (SI) will be a big topic of discussion, but I want to leave it exactly where it is. That is China’s position also.”

Addressing immediate concerns about AI

While many have been calling for federal or global regulations that would limit AI from destroying humanity, Gates in the “Meet the Press” interview said he believes there should be guardrails instituted now to prevent mass casualty events that could be coordinated with the help of AI as soon as today.

“The most dangerous thing we’re facing right now is people with bad intent using AI. You know, so somebody who wants to defraud an individual or wants to shut down the electric network or, you know, scramble bank accounts, they are now empowered,” the philanthropist said.

He added, “historically, countries, you know, had cyberattack teams and they could think of things like bioterror weapons. Now, small groups with AI can do what only the biggest countries could do. So it’s really the bad intent plus AI that looms as a major threat. Unless governments insist on various safeguards, you know, we will see a lot of big, negative things because we’re not safeguarding.”

Gates specifically said monitoring, “where you’re watching what the AI is doing,” is an important safeguard to introduce in each AI lab.

“Law enforcement is going to get called up, you know, on all these fraud events or, you know, transmission shutdown events. And their ability to see what’s going on is going to be nil, unless the monitoring and safeguards are built into the AI,” he added.

Plus, Gates said, these kinds of safety features can be added into current AI systems without slowing down the pace of AI development.

“That’s another debate — of should we slow down or not,” he said. “But deciding to put the safeguards and monitoring in, that’s a choice we have. And the only question is do we do that before or after there’s some large-scale cyber attacks or bioattacks.”

One bipartisan proposed piece of legislation in Congress is one that would impose requirements for a “kill switch,” or a way for AI companies to immediately suspend or shutdown their AI services in the event of a dangerous situation.

Gates told NBC News that, “it’s not enough to have a kill switch,” and renewed his calls for internal monitoring and safeguards for AI agents to be imposed.

“I would never want to say I’m against a kill switch,” he added. “But when you’re trying to moderate the bad behavior, you need insight and records of what’s being done. So the kill switch alone would not prevent these tragedies.”

The Gates Foundation and AI

The Microsoft co-founder, who now leads the Gates Foundation, also spoke about the group’s work expanding AI access to countries where English isn’t the primary language.

“AI models have gotten very good at recognizing English and about a dozen other mainstream languages. And so as you talk about your health, it’s going to accurately record that and be able to help you. In African languages, the error rate will be about 10 times higher,” he said, adding that the error rate can be “very dangerous.”

The Gates Foundation, Gates added, is working with 60 AI companies to expand the reliable languages they offer.

“We have a very concrete timeline to improve the quality, to benchmark and then say, ‘Ok, this is good enough. You can do a health interview or an education session in this language,’” he added, saying he hopes that within five years every language that a million or more people speak will be close to the quality of the English language on these platforms.

Gates said that AI is also guiding the work that his foundation does, saying that AI platforms do “a fantastic job.”

“It’s helping me in the foundation work. You know, what’s the latest on malaria? What’s the latest on malnutrition? You know, it’s allowing the Gates Foundation, which will spend all its money over the next 19 years. You know, it got a bit over $200 billion. That money will be far, far better spent because we’re using AI to guide our work,” he added.

A ‘regrettable’ relationship with Jeffrey Epstein

In the last year, Gates has also faced scrutiny for his ties to the late Jeffrey Epstein, a disgraced financier who was a convicted sex offender. When the Justice Department released a trove of files related to Epstein at the direction of federal lawmakers, Gates’ name appeared multiple times, including in allegations from Epstein via email that Gates was involved in extramarital affairs.

The Microsoft co-founder has since called his past relationship with Epstein, “foolish,” and testified to House lawmakers in June that he did not engage in illegal activity with Epstein.

On Wednesday, Gates called his relationship with Epstein “regrettable” and accused Epstein of using their friendship to boost his reputation.

“I was told by Jeffrey, after I met him, that he could help raise billions of dollars for global health. You know, he wouldn’t be paid, he would have no role. You know, that proved to be a complete dead end. So, you know, my spending time with him, like many other people, kind of helped his reputation. You know, that’s very regrettable,” he said.