Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates calls AI "the most dangerous thing that humans have ever gone near," and says it crossed bio and cyber thresholds this year.
Key Facts
Bill Gates said AI has crossed key bio and cyber danger thresholds, and that the technology "makes nuclear weapons look like nothing."
Gates said relying on the AI industry to regulate itself is "just insane" in an interview published the same day tech CEOs signed a voluntary safety accord at the White House.
A security engineer using Anthropic's Opus 4.8 found a Zcash flaw on May 29 that had been live for four years, writing a working exploit that minted counterfeit ZEC in testing.
Bill Gates said artificial intelligence has crossed the thresholds that make it more dangerous than any weapon humanity has built, and that almost no one responded when it happened.
"This makes nuclear weapons look like nothing," Gates told the Ezra Klein Show in an interview published Tuesday. "We crossed those thresholds, and there was complete silence."
The Microsoft co-founder said the capability to "empower a bioterrorist to kill hundreds of millions" exists today, as does to carry out "a cyberattack that scrambles all the bank accounts, shuts down the electric grid."
What Convinced Gates AI Crossed the Cyber Threshold
Gates said he sees the evidence in AI’s code abilities. He said recent models began finding flaws "in code that humans have looked over for over 20 years and said, boy, we see there's no problem here."
"And it, in a few minutes says, no, no, I can inject this over here and this over here," he said. "At a level of complexity where when you see it, you go, wait, oh yeah, you're right."
"It used to be only nation states had enough resources and capability to do these things," he said. "Now that power has been passed into the hands of a small group just using the latest AI tools."
Has AI Been Used in a Crypto Hack Yet?
AI’s capability to disrupt crypto is already documented. Security engineer Taylor Hornby used Anthropic's Opus 4.8, released the day before, in an audit of Zcash's (ZEC) Orchard circuit on May 29.
He found a flaw live since Orchard launched in May 2022 and wrote an exploit that minted undetectable counterfeit ZEC in testing, Shielded Labs said. An emergency fix followed within days.
The flaw "had evaded years of scrutiny by many of the world's best cryptographers," Shielded Labs said. Anthropic's December 2025 study found AI agents identified $4.6 million of exploitable smart contract vulnerabilities.
Whether attackers have used AI in real-world exploits is not yet established, but it is high suspected. CertiK put first-half losses at $1.32 billion and said attackers revisiting dormant codebases were "likely assisted by automated tooling."
Blockstream, refusing to pay a ransom over the Sept. 6 Liquid Network theft, said "the world is a different place with the advancements of AI," hinting that AI could have been used in the exploit.
Asked whether corporate incentives were enough to keep humanity safe from AI, Gates said: "I almost can't believe you're asking that.”
“This is the most dangerous thing that humans have ever gone near."
There is "no supervisory layer today," he added, calling self-regulation "just insane."
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