Bill Gates on the Dangers of AI

About this episode

Bill Gates has generally been an AI optimist. Three years ago, he wrote that AI had downsides, but the risks were “manageable.” This week, Gates wrote a new memo, headlined: “The Turbulent AI Era Is Here. The Choices We Make Now Are Critical.” He joins the show to raise the alarm about the dangers he sees in artificial intelligence—economic upheaval, social unrest, cyberattacks, bioterrorism—and most crucial, what he sees as a failure of experts and governments to take these threats seriously enough. “The lack of dialogue with all parts of society is kind of deafening silence,” he tells Hanna Rosin. “Anyone who analogizes AI as a technology to other technologies is missing that this time is different. And saying something is different, there’s a very high bar for that, but I’m staking whatever reputation I have [on] saying this time is different.” They have a wide-ranging conversation—also available on video—about his evolving views on AI and what he misjudged in his interactions with Jeffrey Epstein. - - - Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on bre