Bill Gates says AI companies self-regulating isn’t enough and governments should be involved in monitoring

Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates on Wednesday called for lawmakers in Washington to regulate the development of artificial intelligence, weeks after the CEOs of some of the nation’s biggest AI labs agreed on the need to slow the pace of AI progress.

“No one thinks self-regulation is enough,” Gates told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” in an interview set to air in full Sunday.

Asked by moderator Kristen Welker whether there needs to be legislation passed in Washington, Gates said, “Absolutely.”

“You need law enforcement and the politicians to get into the discussion about what safeguards and monitoring look like,” he said. “And that has to be a required thing. And it will be a little bit of overhead for the industry, but not a dramatic slowing of what they’re doing.”

Earlier this month, the CEOs of Anthropic and OpenAI, two of the nation’s biggest AI labs, agreed that the race to develop powerful AI systems should slow down. Their statements on the issue came after a whistleblower who recently resigned from Anthropic, Jacob Coxon, publicly declared that “neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives.”

“The people building…

Original source: https://www.nbcnews.com/business