Insane... Needs to stop...

Bill Gates warns AI could lead to mass unemployment, cyberattacks

The Microsoft co-founder said he would support a plan to slow the development of the technology.

By Gregory Svirnovskiy

Tech titan Bill Gates painted a stark picture of the future of artificial intelligence in a Wednesday editorial, urging the creation of international institutions to govern the technology and warning of mass unemployment, cyberattacks and bioterrorism if leaders fail to “prepare adequately for the transition.”

“If someone had a credible plan for slowing down AI advances globally, I would likely support it,” the Microsoft co-founder wrote on Gates Notes, his personal blog. “However, I don’t think that’s going to happen. The geopolitical and economic incentives are pushing too hard to go full speed ahead.”

It comes as Americans have increasingly soured on AI and the massive data centers that power the technology. In public polling, most Americans say that the government should more tightly regulate AI. Candidates running in the 2026 midterms, and a handful of 2028 presidential hopefuls, have already endorsed policies that make it harder to build data centers.

A July POLITICO Poll found that 41 percent of Americans would oppose the construction of a data center near their home, with just 24 percent saying they’d support it.

“The highest priority is a monumental task: creating a domestic and international framework for dealing with AI,” Gates wrote. “None of our current institutions were designed to handle a technology that spreads so fast and touches so many parts of our lives. So we’ll need to make new ones.”

AI industry leaders have said that entry-level jobs could be lost to rapid advances in AI technology. And software engineers in Silicon Valley have already seen their prospects tumble. But even white-collar jobs seen as less vulnerable to AI will soon be at risk, Gates warned, including “things like assessing loan applications, doing data analysis, and even triaging patients.”

“We have to think now about how to reduce job losses so that everyone can share in the prosperity that AI creates,” he wrote. “Waiting until people are already displaced or underemployed will be too late. AI is a structural challenge to the way our economy is organized, and it requires thinking and action now.”

AI, Gates wrote, could also make it easier for bad actors to design new diseases and carry out widespread cyberattacks on hospitals, water systems and power grids by “empowering bad actors who have relatively little power now.”

“When these institutions are attacked, it’s the patients, customers, and benefits recipients who stand to lose,” he wrote.