Artificial intelligence is powerful enough to cause a billion deaths if used by people with malicious intent, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates told NBC News’ ‘Meet the Press’ in an interview on Friday.

Governments should not rely on tech companies to police themselves, the billionaire stressed, urging Washington to pass legislation regulating AI development.

“AI is certainly powerful enough to drive events that… cause a billion deaths,” he said. “Even though it’s pretty hard to get to 100%, there’s never been a weapon as powerful as the combination of people of ill intent using the latest AI tools.”

Gates’ warning came just days after OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei renewed calls for stronger government guardrails on the technology following multiple incidents involving AI agents breaking containment in recent months.

Last month, Gates warned that “AI will either be the greatest equalizer ever invented, or the worst source of injustice.” He also argued that the risk of a rogue group using “open source AI tools to design a bioterrorism weapon” is greater than that of “a naturally caused pandemic.”

It is not the first time Gates has warned of a looming global epidemic. In a widely viewed 2015 TED talk, he said the world was poorly prepared for the next major pandemic.

His warning drew renewed attention after the Covid-19 pandemic emerged in late 2019. Gates subsequently became a magnet for conspiracy theories because of his prominent role in global public health. His earlier warnings and the Gates Foundation’s involvement in a 2019 pandemic preparedness exercise were incorporated into claims that he had planned the outbreak and intended to profit from vaccines.

His earlier remarks linking vaccines and health care to slower population growth also drew controversy. In a 2010 TED talk, Gates said the world’s population was heading from 6.8 billion toward 9 billion before adding: “Now, if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by, perhaps, 10% or 15%.”

Gates has dismissed vaccine- and pandemic-related accusations against him as “crazy” and “evil.”

The billionaire’s ties to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein have also fueled public scrutiny and conspiracy theories, although Gates has repeatedly said that meeting Epstein was a mistake and denied any improper relationship with him.