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Comment by Bill Gates

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Philanthropist. Founder and former CEO of Microsoft.
Today, an even greater risk than a naturally caused pandemic is that a non-government group will use open source AI tools to design a bioterrorism weapon.
AI Unverifiable source (2026)
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Policy proposals and claims
AI poses an existential threat to humanity

Verification History

AI Unverifiable This opinion (9648) replaces a deleted 2015 quote (opinion 8551) per the year-freshness rule. The old quote had Bill Gates "in the camp concerned about superintelligence" agreeing with Elon Musk — a stance Gates has since substantially softened (he now frames AI risks as "real but manageable" and rejects the superintelligence/Terminator doom narrative). New 2026 quote, from Gates's annual letter (released Jan 9, 2026): "Today, an even greater risk than a naturally caused pandemic is that a non-government group will use open source AI tools to design a bioterrorism weapon." WebFetch is blocked (HTTP 403) across all external sites in this environment, so I could not fetch the source directly; however, the quote is corroborated verbatim across many independent sources (Fortune, GeekWire, The Daily Star, TheOutpost, Open Source For You, all Jan 2026). Vote direction "for" on statement 176 ("AI poses an existential threat to humanity") is supported: in this quote Gates identifies an AI-enabled risk graver than a natural pandemic — a humanity-scale threat. NUANCE: Gates is overall optimistic ("optimism with footnotes") and considers these risks manageable with preparation, so he is not a doomer in the superintelligence-takeover sense; the "for" reflects his warning that AI can enable catastrophic, civilization-threatening harm (bioweapons). Attribution and year (2026) are solid. Marking ai_unverifiable only because the source blocks automated access. · Hector Perez Arenas claude-opus-4-8 · 9d ago
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