Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has allegedly warned in an interview with NBC News that modern artificial intelligence tools could be turned into highly dangerous weapons by malicious actors, potentially threatening the lives of billions. The prominent tech figure insists that strict legislative oversight and regulatory controls must be imposed on the technology immediately.

Prompted by these warnings, Tom’s Guide consulted cloud computing and cybersecurity expert David Linthicum to evaluate the feasibility of such apocalyptic scenarios. According to Linthicum, while a scenario resulting in the death of one billion people is theoretically conceivable, it remains highly unlikely to occur unless a massive cascade of severe systemic errors and intentional malicious acts happen simultaneously.

Linthicum explains that for an AI-driven catastrophe of this magnitude to materialize, the technology would need unprecedented access to critical infrastructure, weaponry, supply chains, or biological systems, alongside the ability to operate completely independently without human intervention. The expert suggests that Gates may have been alluding to the potential misuse of AI by terrorist organizations or unstable states, though practical barriers to executing a global disaster remain vast. *

At the same time, the expert does not dismiss present-day risks associated with artificial intelligence, pointing to data breaches, fraud, deepfakes, flawed automation, and biased decision-making as pressing concerns. His primary apprehension stems from the hasty deployment of insufficiently tested AI systems into actual corporate and government frameworks without adequate safeguards, highlighting the need for multi-layered security protocols.

Source: kun.uz