WATCH: AI could 'kill billions' if used by bad actors, Bill Gates warns

Microsoft founder Bill Gates claimed that humanity has "created an intelligent species" by developing artificial intelligence and warned that, if used poorly, it could lead to the death of billions of people around the world, during an interview on Sunday with NBC.

"We have created an intelligent species that in many respects is already smarter than we are and that, over the next several years at kind of an exponential level, will be insanely smarter than we are," Gates said, adding that the AI is not dangerous by itself, but it's people with ill intent that are turning it into a dangerous weapon.

"The AI is not running millions of robots, so if it turns out to be too dangerous, we still can solve it by turning off their main computers," Gates explained. "The most dangerous thing about AI is people's bad intentions using it for things like defrauding individuals, shutting down electrical systems, or scrambling bank accounts."

According to Gates, before AI became an accessible tool, most cyberattacks were carried out by state-sponsored groups and required large amounts of funding, while now small groups can carry out these operations without massive resources.

"There has never been a weapon as powerful as the combination of people with ill intentions using the latest AI tools," Gates claimed, and pointed out that it's a great sign that leaders in the industry and policymakers are worried about this situation.

Gates favors safeguards over 'kill switch,' slowing down

Later in the interview, Gates was asked what his solution is to the AI threat, and he said safeguards can be much more effective than a "kill switch" for AI models or even slowing down development of the technology.

Gates said that in the next couple of years, there will be many situations when AI will require law enforcement to get involved due to fraud attacks or shutdown events, and they will have no way of knowing what is going on due to the way AI operates unless there are safeguards and monitoring mechanisms installed in the technology.

"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 are some large-scale cyberattacks or bioattacks?" he asked.

He also said that, in contrast with more conventional weapons such as rockets or nuclear bombs, AI was developed almost entirely in the private sector, with governments not grasping the real threats that AI represents nowadays due to a lack of understanding of how the technology works.

"Because it's cast in this nationalistic, you know, us-versus-them type of 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 the safeguards and monitoring capabilities," he added.

Gates warns about bioterrorism using AI

Gates also warned that a challenge when talking about the implementation of safeguards and monitoring the AI development is to distinguish between someone attempting to do good with AI and someone developing bioweapons or bioattacks.

"I wish it were easier to distinguish good intent, like I want to design a new drug for a disease, versus negative intent, which is I want to design a tool of bioterrorism. Because those are so close. We do need to monitor any sophisticated model and record it," he said.

He added that there is no current risk of the AI going "rogue" on its own, with the main concern in the industry being people using the models to develop weapons or push for cyberattacks against the banking system or electric power grids.

"It's good that these loss-of-control incidents have gotten people focused on AI, even though that's not the imminent risk," he said.

"There is no current risk of these AIs getting completely out of control. The same monitoring that we put in to avoid bad people using AI is exactly the monitoring you want to see if the AI itself is. But the urgent issue is bad people using AI, not the AI going off on its own," he explained.