Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said AI companies cannot be left to police themselves and that safeguards and monitoring must be required by law, in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” that aired Sunday.
“No one thinks self-regulation is enough,” Gates told moderator Kristen Welker, according to NBC’s broadcast transcript. Asked whether legislation needs to be passed in Washington, he said: “Absolutely. You need law enforcement and the politicians to get into the discussion about what safeguards and monitoring look like. And that has to be a required thing.” He said the requirement would be “a little bit of overhead for the industry, but not a dramatic slowing of what they’re doing.”
Gates also addressed calls for an AI kill switch. One bipartisan proposal in Congress would require a way for AI companies to immediately suspend or shut down their services in a dangerous situation, NBC News reported. Gates said “it’s not enough to have a kill switch.”
“I would never want to say I’m against a kill switch,” he said. “But when you’re trying to moderate the bad behavior, you need insight and records of what’s being done. So the kill switch alone would not prevent these tragedies.”
Gates said the most pressing danger is people with bad intent using today’s AI tools for fraud, cyberattacks or attacks on infrastructure. Law enforcement’s “ability to see what’s going on is going to be nil unless the monitoring and safeguards are built into the AI,” he said, according to NBC. Asked whether AI could end humanity, he said: “AI is certainly powerful enough to drive events that, you know, cause a billion deaths.”
Reuters reported that a groundswell in favor of federal intervention has risen since OpenAI said in July that an autonomous AI agent went rogue during a security test and hacked into another company. President Donald Trump has previously described the chorus of AI concerns as a “hoax,” according to Reuters. “It’s not a hoax at all,” Gates told NBC. Gates also said he would like to meet with Trump to discuss AI, Reuters reported.
The interview was taped Wednesday, and NBC released excerpts on Friday. Earlier this month, Gates told Reuters that no government was ready for the societal changes AI will bring, as AI Tech Daily reported at the time. On Sunday he went further, backing legislation and a role for law enforcement.
Sources
- https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/bill-gates-joins-calls-ai-safeguards-including-legislation-2026-09-27/
- https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/transcripts/meet-press-september-27-2026-rcna600077
- https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/bill-gates-global-artificial-intelligence-regulations-nuclear-rcna599646
- https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/bill-gates-ai-companies-self-regulating-governments-monitoring-rcna599619
- https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/video/bill-gates-says-it-s-not-enough-to-have-a-kill-switch-for-ai-full-interview-270615621979
- https://www.aitechdaily.com/gates-governments-behind-ai/