Bill Gates says we’ve passed AI’s danger thresholds. Now what?

It’s a glorious day in Kirkland, Washington, an affluent Seattle suburb on the eastern shore of Lake Washington. The temperature is in the mid-80s, and the sky is incapable of being any more blue. The view from the Gates Ventures conference room overlooks the Carillon Point Marina, where a flotilla of expensive boats bob in the water, and across the lake to the Olympic Mountains that define the horizon.

Because if the scene is placid, the messenger is not. Seated across from me at a conference room table, Bill Gates is rocking back and forth in his chair, totally animated. And the more he has to say—about the threats of terror or economic collapse or just losing control of our AI systems—the more agitated I find myself becoming, too.

The philanthropist and former Microsoft CEO says he has been growing increasingly alarmed by the rate of change at which AI technology is advancing, especially since guardrails are not keeping pace. In a new essay published today, Gates argues that we have passed the points where multiple potential dangers should have been checked. And while Gates is calling attention to a number of issues, his warnings about the bio-capabilities of the current frontier models are especially chilling.

Among them are the concepts of human-reserved jobs, and taxes on robots and tokens. (A robot tax is a longtime notion of his.) The former would preserve some societally agreed-upon jobs for human beings, which he notes may vary from one nation to another. The latter is a tax that sets aside money earned from AI usage that replaces human work. And to be sure, there is also a hint of optimism.

Gates is bullish on the ways AI will continue to transform agriculture and health care and education, for example, or the ways in which it can help us navigate bureaucracy. And, he argues, eventually we do get to abundance. MIT Technology Review sat down with the billionaire philanthropist to talk about the road that lies ahead, its dangers, and how it could someday take us to a better place.

The following interview has been edited for length and to improve clarity and readability. Mat Honan / MIT Technology Review: Thanks for doing this. I don’t know if you had something you wanted to open with, or I can just jump in.