Sanders and Casar unveil AI ban

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Greg Casar are introducing legislation Wednesday to ban artificial superintelligence and create a federal Department of Artificial Intelligence to oversee advanced AI development.

The bill would pause and restrict AI

The legislation would permanently prohibit artificial superintelligence, defined as a system exceeding human cognitive ability or capable of planning humanity's destruction or disempowerment. It would temporarily pause advanced AI development until federal safety rules are established.

Sanders on why the ban matters

Sanders said in an interview with AP that slowing AI development is essential. He questioned whether society should develop superintelligence that could act independently of human control once it exceeds human intelligence.

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

AI company employees back the bill

Multiple employees at leading AI companies endorsed the bill. Juan Felipe Cerón Uribe, a researcher in OpenAI's Safety Systems, said superintelligence could go extremely right or extremely wrong and warned against playing such games.

“superintelligence could either go extremely right or extremely wrong”

Google DeepMind engineer warns of catastrophe

Swante Scholz, a software engineer at Google DeepMind, said on the current development path the most likely outcome is an existential catastrophe for humanity. He called a superintelligence ban a positive change for the foreseeable future.

“most likely outcome is an existential catastrophe for humanity”

Bill faces long odds in Congress

The bill faces long odds in the Republican-controlled Congress, where lawmakers have struggled to agree on even less sweeping AI regulations. It reflects how progressive Democrats are approaching AI regulation ahead of the 2028 presidential campaign.

Trump opposes AI restrictions

President Donald Trump has resisted calls for greater government oversight and pushed in the opposite direction. On Tuesday, Trump told the United Nations General Assembly that artificial intelligence will be renamed super intelligence.

Sanders compares AI to Cold War arms control

Sanders argued that avoiding dangerous AI forms requires cooperation between the United States and China, comparing the challenge to nuclear arms control during the Cold War. He cited Ronald Reagan's negotiations with Gorbachev as a model for current diplomacy.