Bill Gates has joined growing calls for stronger government oversight of artificial intelligence, saying lawmakers and law enforcement agencies should play a role in establishing safeguards and monitoring systems for the rapidly developing technology.
“You need law enforcement and the politicians to get into the discussion about what safeguards and monitoring look like,” Gates said in a recorded interview with NBC’s Meet the Press. He added that such measures should be mandatory.
Calls for greater federal involvement have intensified following concerns over the increasing autonomy of advanced AI systems. Gates said government involvement was necessary and argued that self-regulation by technology companies would not be sufficient.
“No one thinks self-regulation is enough,” he said.
Executives from several major AI companies, including Anthropic, OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Microsoft and xAI, have also called for greater coordination and caution as increasingly capable AI systems are developed.
However, US President Donald Trump and other opponents of additional AI regulation have argued that tighter government restrictions could weaken the United States’ position in the global AI race and benefit China. Trump has previously dismissed calls for new AI laws as unnecessary.
Gates rejected that argument, saying appropriate safeguards would not significantly restrict the industry while warning that failing to establish them could carry serious risks.
“It’s not a hoax at all,” Gates told NBC.
Gates has also expressed interest in meeting Trump to discuss AI, saying he hopes his experience in the technology sector and concerns about the pace of AI development will contribute to the debate.
Warnings about the potential risks of AI have gained renewed attention after researchers and former employees at leading AI companies raised concerns about the possibility of increasingly powerful systems causing severe harm.
Former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon warned that AI could pose an existential threat within the coming decade, while Anthropic alignment researcher Evan Hubinger said there was a more than 10 per cent possibility of such an event occurring within the same period.
Some US policymakers have proposed requiring a “kill switch” that would allow authorities to halt AI systems in certain circumstances. Gates said he was not opposed to such a mechanism but argued that it would need to be accompanied by other safeguards.
Meanwhile, the United States and China have agreed to establish a dialogue on artificial intelligence following Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent visit to Washington.
