Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said we “need law enforcement and the politicians” to get into the discussion about safeguards and monitoring for artificial intelligence.
Partial transcript as follows:
KRISTEN WELKER: There’s a debate over should there be a kill switch that is imposed? Others are suggesting a total pause, as you note, on AI development. And there are some who say companies can regulate themselves. How do you believe AI should be regulated?
GATES: Well, unfortunately most dangerous technologies, the government understands because they funded the research, or they’re an important customer for nuclear bombs or rockets or things like that. AI has emerged from the private sector, and so the depth of understanding of these dangerous thresholds that were crossed literally this year, bio-attack capability, cyber attack capability and others, you have so little expertise in the government. And, you know, because it’s cast in this nationalistic, you know, us versus them type thing, you have people who are saying, “Well, let’s just go full-speed ahead.” It’s completely irresponsible not to require every AI to have these safeguards and monitoring capabilities. And it only is a question of do you do it now?
WELKER: Do you think self-regulation is sufficient? Or does it need to be accompanied by legislation in Washington –
GATES: No one thinks self-regulation is enough.
WELKER: So there needs to be legislation passed in Washington?
GATES: 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. And it will be a little bit of overhead for the industry, but not a dramatic slowing of what they’re doing.
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