Bill Gates Warns AI Could Fuel Cyberattacks And Bioterrorism

Bill Gates warns that criminals could exploit unregulated artificial intelligence to launch devastating cyberattacks and bioterrorism, urging stronger safeguards against AI misuse.

“The real danger right now is not the AIs getting out of control. We need to work on that, but that’s years away in terms of the big impact that might have,” Bill Gates said in an interview with CNN this week.

“It’s really bad people using AI, particularly an AI where you can take out all the safeguards,” he continued. “When you have bad people, no safeguards, and then the latest models, that’s where over the next year, primarily in the cyber area, we are going to have a lot of negative surprises.”

Criminals will use artificial intelligence to their advantage using cyberattacks

Criminals already have financial incentives to take advantage of the technology, according to Gates. He says financial systems that could be disrupted and firms that are subject to blackmail are at high risk. “Extortion is a tried and true business model,” Gates said.

He also discussed possible attacks aimed at affecting betting results or financial markets, since any disruption could be used to profit from the fallout.

“The front that we’ll probably see most dramatically in the next year is cyberattacks, because there, there’s a known business model where, you know, you threaten to do something and ask somebody to pay for that, or you create a disruption that changes something in the stock market or some betting thing that you go and do,” he said.

Gates also warned about the potential of bioterrorism and job loss

Additionally, Bill Gates cautioned that artificial intelligence might make it simpler for bad actors to create biological weapons. He claimed that politicians need to take appropriate precautions to confront the threat of a bioterrorist strike.

Concerns about massive job losses as companies replace human workers with robots and AI systems were also voiced by Gates. He predicted that because of those concerns, governments will someday have to reevaluate how they impose taxes on robotics and artificial intelligence.

When asked whether leaders were doing enough to mitigate AI-related threats, Gates said governments should take more preventive action, as they have with planes, cars, and medications, rather than leaving it to tech companies to police themselves.

“I think, over the next year, we will move beyond self-governance,” Gates said. “The idea that for the most dangerous technology humans ever invented, that that’s the final word, that just the companies themselves are the only check that society has, particularly when this idea of what safeguards do you need, it’s clear we’re not doing enough we see through these incidents. Over the next year, the idea that government has to get more sophisticated, and we will have safety groups, like we do for those other domains.”

Bill Gates has expressed similar concerns about AI before

Bill Gates has long expressed concerns about artificial intelligence. In addition to his recent warnings about cyberattacks, bioterrorism, and job loss, he is also worried about other negative consequences of AI.

“If the world takes the right steps AI will be a force for good and leave everyone better off,” Gates wrote in an essay last August. “Unfortunately, right now we are not preparing for it. I don’t see evidence that leaders, experts, and communities are confronting the challenges adequately. There is no plan to ease the entry into the AI era.”

One of the big risks he shared in that essay was that AI could stunt kids’ development and replace human relationships.

“When I was growing up in Seattle, I didn’t have that many friends aside from a few other boys who were like me,” he wrote. “It took hard work and a lot of help from my mom to develop my social skills so I could relate to different kinds of people. I still draw on those lessons today at the age of 70.

“I doubt I would have put in the same work if I had had an AI companion back then. They talk to you in ways you’re already comfortable with. They don’t push you outside your comfort zone. They are always available and never get mad at you. This gives them the potential to become highly addictive and to rob us of the lessons we learn from connecting with other people.”