Bill Gates has accused the Trump administration of stymying international efforts to protect against AI-driven bioweapon risks, warning that a pandemic caused by AI could be "significantly worse than Covid". Speaking at the Financial Times’ Future of AI Summit, the Microsoft co-founder highlighted the "stunning" capabilities of AI models and the immediate threat posed by bad actors using AI tools to create bioweapons or exploit cyber vulnerabilities. He emphasized that the scale of damage from an AI-enabled biosecurity incident could exceed the estimated 15mn deaths linked to the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 and 2021.
Despite these warnings, global regulatory efforts are being hindered by White House inaction, with President Donald Trump dismissing international guidelines as a "globalist scheme" and favoring self-regulation. Gates argued that self-regulation is insufficient and urged the administration to establish benchmarks for model safeguards, lead global efforts to fix cyber vulnerabilities, and implement massive monitoring across air, sewage, and blood to detect AI-enabled infections early. He also called for accelerated AI adoption in drug discovery and healthcare, while supporting taxes on billionaires to address societal disruptions caused by AI.
Source: Financial Times Companies · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing