Bill Gates said the real danger from artificial intelligence (AI) right now comes from bad people using it without safeguards. He placed the risk of AI slipping out of human control years away.
The Microsoft co-founder made the remarks to Jake Tapper on CNN’s State of the Union. He also mentioned that cyberattacks are probably where that misuse will show up most dramatically over the next year.
Stripped Safeguards Sit at the Center of Bill Gates’ AI Warning
Tapper asked whether leaders were doing enough to prevent AI-enabled bioterrorism. Gates said not enough is being done.
He said developers try to block cyberattacks and bioterrorism with safeguards, but those can all be stripped out right now.
“…the real danger right now is not that AI is getting out of control,” Gates said.
Gates singled out the combination of bad actors, missing safeguards, and the newest models. He pointed to a known business model that takes 2 forms.
One involves threatening to do something and then demanding payment. The other involves creating a disruption that moves the stock market or affects some form of betting.
“When you have bad people, no safeguards, and then the latest models, that’s where, over the next year, primarily in the cyber area, we are going to have a lot of negative surprises,” he added.
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The AI Industry Has Raised Similar Alarms
Tech companies have set an even shorter timeline. In August, OpenAI published an open letter on cyber defense, signed by more than 100 organizations.
“In the coming months, AI-enabled cyber attacks will become far more widespread and sophisticated…” the letter read.
Recent research shows weak guardrails already shape attacker behavior. Taiwanese firm TeamT5 found that Chinese state-linked groups doubled their attack volume after handing routine work to AI.
Chainalysis tracked a similar rise on blockchains. Malware instructions written on-chain jumped 440% after open-weight Chinese models with no limits on malicious code arrived in mid-2025.
Profit motives appear in recent cases as well. CrowdStrike tied several South Korean bank breaches to a likely financially motivated attacker using AI tools.
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The post Bill Gates Says Bad Actors Using AI Are the Real Danger Right Now appeared first on BeInCrypto.