Sanders and Casar unveil AI bill

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Greg Casar are introducing legislation Wednesday that would ban artificial superintelligence and create a federal Department of Artificial Intelligence.

Bill would pause advanced AI development

The legislation would temporarily pause development of the most advanced AI systems until new federal safety rules are established by the new Department of Artificial Intelligence.

Superintelligence defined in the bill

The bill permanently prohibits artificial superintelligence, defined as a system that exceeds human cognitive ability or has sufficient capabilities to plan and execute the destruction or disempowerment of humanity.

Sanders on the superintelligence risk

Sanders said in an interview that developing superintelligence that becomes smarter than humans and acts independently of human control is dangerous. He stated, "It doesn't take a genius to say, 'slow it down'."

“It doesn't take a genius to say, 'slow it down'”

AI company employees support the bill

Multiple employees at leading AI companies are endorsing the bill. Juan Felipe Cerón Uribe, a researcher in OpenAI's Safety Systems, said superintelligence could go extremely right or extremely wrong and "we shouldn't be playing such games."

“we shouldn't be playing such games”

Google DeepMind engineer warns of catastrophe

Swante Scholz, a software engineer at Google DeepMind, said on the current path of development, the most likely outcome is an existential catastrophe for humanity and a ban on superintelligence would be positive.

“most likely outcome is an existential catastrophe for humanity”

Trump opposes greater AI oversight

President Donald Trump has resisted calls for greater government oversight, putting him at odds with tech leaders including Anthropic's Dario Amodei, OpenAI's Sam Altman and xAI's Elon Musk who warn about catastrophic risks.

Bill faces long odds in Congress

The bill from Sanders and Casar faces long odds in the Republican-controlled Congress, where lawmakers have struggled to coalesce around even less sweeping AI regulations.

Americans increasingly concerned about AI

About fifty-three percent of Americans are extremely or very concerned about artificial intelligence's environmental impacts, up from forty-one percent last year, according to a recent poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Sanders compares AI to Cold War nuclear arms

Sanders argued that avoiding dangerous AI would require cooperation between the United States and China, comparing the challenge to nuclear arms control during the Cold War and Ronald Reagan's negotiations with Gorbachev.