Bill Gates said on Sunday it’s “not enough to have a kill switch” for artificial intelligence after top AI leaders like Anthropic’s Dario Amodei and OpenAI’s Sam Altman have recently sounded the alarm over the need for a widespread slowdown and development of government guardrails.

Calling the concept of a kill switch “kind of a weird thing,” Gates said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” that “we’re not yet at the point where [AI can] autonomously grab computers and, you know, can’t be shut down.”

“I would never want to say I’m against a kill switch,” he continued. “But when you’re trying to moderate the bad behavior, you need insight and records of what’s being done. So the kill switch alone would not prevent these tragedies.”

Gates made the remarks after moderator Kristen Welker questioned whether a kill switch is even possible or realistic at this stage of AI’s rapid development.

Asked whether he thinks safeguards should be implemented right now, Gates vehemently agreed, saying, “It’s the world’s most obvious thing.”

Gates added that a decision to implement safeguards and monitoring strategies is a “choice we have — and the only question is do we do that before or after there’s some large-scale cyber-attacks or bio-attacks.”

Welker then asked Gates if he believes AI is powerful enough to end all of humanity ― a concern that multiple AI leaders have publicly discussed.

“AI is certainly powerful enough to drive events that cause a billion deaths,” he responded. “So even though it’s pretty hard to get to 100%, there’s never been a weapon as powerful as the combination of people with ill intent using the latest AI tools. And it’s great that there’s this discussion with the industry, almost against their interest, admitting these things. The problem is that the rest of the world is either discounting this or just thinking of this as a competition.”

He added, “And it’s very scary that we don’t have all of the thinkers saying, ‘How do we want to shape this?’”

Elsewhere in the interview, Gates defended Trump after he called AI safety fears a “hoax” amid calls for greater safeguards and warnings that artificial intelligence could destroy humanity.

“Do you believe these warnings about AI posing potentially existential risk to humanity is a hoax?” Welker asked.

“No. It’s not a hoax at all. Just because his initial reaction was that, he’ll listen. You know, he wants to protect the U.S. people. Most people don’t understand what’s going on with AI. They’re not using the very latest models. So it’s — what he said is fine, but I think after he hears from me and other people, including that this does not handicap us in whatever he thinks the nation-state race is, that we will come to a consensus.”

Gates added, “And as I say, some awful events would increase the urgency. But getting the discussion in parallel about safeguards will help us get them in sooner than later.”

Watch the conversation below.

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