Bill Gates warns ‘insane’ AI wave could create ‘bioterror weapon’ and destroy human jobs | News Tech

Bill Gates is hitting the panic button on the ‘insane’ AI wave that could dream up new bio-weapons, bombs, create pandemics and unleash them on the human race.

In a 6,000-word essay titled ‘The Turbulent AI Era Is Here – The Choices We Make Are Critical’, the former Microsoft boss warned AI is developing far faster than humans can control.

He insists people will need to protect global economies by ring-fencing ‘human reserved’ jobs like doctors and carers before robots take over everything.

‘AI will either be the greatest equaliser ever invented, or the worst source of injustice,’ Mr Gates wrote.

‘Even under the best circumstances, the transition to this new AI era will be one of the most turbulent times in human history.’

He claims AI has all the tools it needs to create bombs, bioweapons and computer viruses and could become capable of using that information without human permission.

‘Although AI will lead to lifesaving advances in drugs and vaccines, it will also make it easier to design a deadly new disease,’ he said. 

‘Again, the positive capabilities are hard to separate from the dangerous ones. This is a global problem.

‘The risks I’ve just mentioned are all about how AI will empower bad actors who have relatively little power now. The same tools will also concentrate power in places where it already exists.’ 

‘Autonomous weapons, for example, will make governments even more capable of using deadly force without a human being part of the decision,’ Mr Gates added.

‘Monitoring and manipulating public opinion will be easier and cheaper, and more effective too.’

‘Because it can see, listen, speak, and reason and will eventually do physical work just as smoothly as any human, it will not just affect one sector,’ the tech leader said.

‘AI will take on work in law, customer service, medicine, software, and manufacturing. It will hit these industries rapidly, over the course of a decade rather than a few generations.’

He urged the adoption of ‘human reserved’ jobs protected from AI, fearing huge numbers of jobs vanishing forever.

He continued: ‘I like the phrase human reserved because it makes me think of nature reserves – places where we could put buildings and roads, but we choose not to because the loss would be too great.’

He referred to the doctors who cared for his father as he died of Alzheimer’s disease six years ago.

‘Something in the care they gave my dad was irreplaceably human, no robot could or should have done it,’ he said. 

‘Imagine a robot giving you the awful news that you have an incurable disease. There’s no technical reason why it couldn’t. Yet it shouldn’t.’

After publishing the blog, he told Semafor he had changed his mind on the benefits of AI to the human race.

He added: ‘I am in a state of shock that I’m sort of the first one saying, “This is crazy. This is insane,” he said. ‘I’m just deafened by the silence.’

Gates had been a proponent on the positives AI can bring to medicine and global food production.

Gates had become entangled in the Jeffrrey Epstein scandal after appearing in Epstein files after the paedophile billionaire presented himself as someone who could connect wealthy donors to global health causes. An affair was revealed and ultimately his association with Epstein led to his divorce from Melinda Gates.

Gates told 9News: ‘You know, in retrospect, that was a dead end and I was foolish to spend time with him. I am one of many people who regret ever knowing him.’

The Microsoft co-founder added: ‘I was only at dinners… I never went to the island, I never met any women, and so, you know, the more that comes out, the more clear it’ll be, that although the time was a mistake, it had nothing to do with that kind of behavior.’

In late February, Gates admitted to having extramarital affairs with two Russian women but denied any involvement with the financier’s activities.

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