Bill Gates warns governments are unprepared for AI's societal impact

Microsoft founder Bill Gates has said in an interview that the world’s governments are not ready for artificial intelligence. The billionaire philanthropist made the warning in an interview with Reuters, saying that nations must prepare for the various risks that the technology poses to the workforce and society as a whole.

“I don’t think any government is nearly as deep on this as they have to be. Governments are way behind on this one,” Gates told the publication. He also added, “There’s all sorts of movies where some aliens are coming, and magically, the U.S. and China and everybody comes together to solve the problem. AI is kind of like this alien intelligence. It’s here, and we better do like it shows in those movies.” In line with this, he said that he has been in talks with world leaders like U.S. President Donald Trump to share his concerns, and that he’s also trying to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

While concerns AI’s impact on jobs and human society may seem small compared to the news about runaway AI taking over the world and ending all human life, governments still cannot ignore these seemingly lesser issues. This is especially true if businesses stop hiring people in favor of AI tools, with the CEO of Microsoft AI predicting that they could replace every white-collar job in 18 months. This is why Gates argues that authorities across the world must have plans in place when this begins to happen, even going as far as saying that some jobs should be “Human Reserved.”

It’s unclear what steps Bill Gates believes governments should take to prepare and protect its citizens from the predicted turmoil that AI technologies will bring on humanity, but U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders has already proposed an AI sovereign wealth fund that would have direct ownership stakes on American AI firms. He even went as far as introducing the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act, which puts the penalty of developing powerful AI tools at par with building rogue nuclear weapons. However, the current administration has downplayed all these concerns about AI, with President Trump calling them a hoax.

Despite his warnings, Gates still believes that AI has great potential for good. The Gates Foundation is planning to spend at least a billion dollars in the next two years to give more people access to AI, saying that it could help the world’s poorest people “if managed properly and accessed equally.” This amount of money will go towards supporting the use of AI in education, healthcare, and agriculture, and even the expansion of large language models so that they would work across all the languages on earth.

Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics.