Bill Gates told NBC’s Meet the Press that artificial intelligence could cause devastation on a scale never before seen — up to “a billion deaths” if governments don’t step in.
The Microsoft co-founder, who has spent years as a tech evangelist pushing AI adoption, suddenly changed his tune in excerpts NBC released Friday. The full interview airs Sunday.
“AI is certainly powerful enough to drive events that, you know, cause a billion deaths.”
Gates didn’t stop there. He described AI as the most dangerous weapon ever created when combined with bad actors. “Even though it’s pretty hard to get to 100%, there’s never been a weapon as powerful as the combination of people with ill intent using the latest AI tools,” he told host Kristen Welker.
The warning extends a memo and essay Gates dropped in August — his first time ever arguing a new technology should slow down rather than speed up.
That’s a massive shift for a billionaire who built his post-Microsoft career on betting AI would fix the world’s hardest problems. Gates said in August this is the first time in his life he wished a technology would advance more slowly.
“I’m surprised to feel this way,” Gates said. “I’ve never seen a problem that innovation can’t solve.”
He grouped his fears into three buckets: safety threats like AI-enabled hacking, biological weapons, and fraud; job losses driven by AI and robots; and risks to children, including stunted learning and damaged relationships.
Writing software code and enabling cyberattacks are the two areas where AI recently blew past his expectations. Asked about AI’s cyber-offense capability, he used one word: “mind-blowing.”
Gates said governments and political parties need to set aside differences and act now, before AI risks spiral out of control. His comments come as tech leaders and officials continue debating how to respond to fears of an AI-driven catastrophe.
Major players in AI are jockeying for position in the regulation race. Wynton Hall, Breitbart News social media director, wrote the New York Times bestseller Code Red: The Left, the Right, China, and the Race to Control AI to serve as the definitive guide on how the MAGA movement can create AI positions that benefit humanity without handing control to Silicon Valley leftists or the Chinese.
Hall predicted the current AI debate tone back in February, when he laid out the left’s plan to weaponize AI concerns before the midterms.
The playbook has three parts: convince Americans mass AI job loss is inevitable, channel that fear into support for Universal Basic Income redistribution long-term, and co-opt populist concerns over AI data centers driving up electricity and water bills short-term.
Gates’ sudden shift from AI evangelist to doomsayer raises questions about what Silicon Valley elites know that the public doesn’t — and whether the MAGA movement can get ahead of the regulation fight before the left locks in control.
🚨 Bill Gates predicts that AI could “drive events that cause a billion deaths” pic.twitter.com/o1k6KqAkS4
— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) September 25, 2026
