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Bernie Sanders

Bernie Sanders speaks at a podium after proposing a ban on artificial superintelligence development.

Sanders Bill Would Ban Superintelligent AI And Pause Advanced Development

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The government could break up a company that builds a superintelligent system; the people who build it could face up to 20 years in prison; and a separate pause on advanced AI would run until a federal AI agency is created and writes safety rules.

 

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) introduced the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act. It would make it a federal crime to build or put into use a system the bill calls artificial superintelligence (ASI), and it would pause development of what the bill calls advanced AI until a new federal AI agency has written safety rules. The summary Sanders released defines the first of those two terms. It does not define the second.

Sanders made the same demand once before without a bill behind it. In August, he wrote to Anthropic, Meta, and OpenAI telling them to halt development themselves. He said the Senate would act if they did not, citing recent incidents at all three companies.

OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta had each already written their own stopping rules. Meta said it would stop development, OpenAI said it would halt further development, and Anthropic said it would pause building bigger models or delay releasing new ones. Each said it would do so once its own systems became more capable than the protections it had built for them. The release says none of them acted on those commitments.

 

The ban is aimed at a system nobody has built, yet

The bill would outlaw two things. One is an AI that thinks as well as a person, or better, across a broad range of subjects. The other is an AI that could plan how to take power away from people, which the bill says includes overthrowing the US government. It calls both artificial superintelligence (ASI).

Nobody has built either. OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind all say the first one is what they are trying to build, and none of them claim to have built one as yet.

So the ban would apply the moment a company completed an ASI model, and it would never lift. The bill sets no end date and creates no license a company could apply for.

 

The pause stops work now, and no company can tell if it is covered

The pause stops the work going on today, which is not superintelligent but is heading that way. 

The bill halts development of what it calls advanced AI. It does not say what development actions would trigger a pause.

The pause would last until a new federal AI agency exists, has written safety rules, and has set up a way to review systems before release.

The department would rank alongside Defense and the Treasury, with a board of outside experts advising it. It would watch the most powerful systems in use, order dangerous abilities removed, such as a refusal to shut down, and oversee the destruction of anything the ban covers.

 

Developing artificial superintelligence would be akin to developing nuclear weapons

The government could dissolve a company that builds a banned system, a penalty the sponsors call the corporate death penalty. An individual could face up to 20 years in prison. Sanders’ summary says the sponsors set the penalties to match those for unlawfully developing nuclear weapons.

The bill would also make it official US policy to stop anyone building superintelligence anywhere in the world, through treaties, work with allied governments, and controls on what American companies may export.

 

Where the bill stands

No committee has taken up the bill, and no Republican has signed on to it.

Congress is weighing several other responses to the same run of incidents. The one closest to the Sanders bill is the AI Kill Switch Act, which Reps. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Nathaniel Moran (R-Texas) introduced in July. That bill prohibits nothing. It lets the Department of Homeland Security order a dangerous system slowed, restricted, suspended, or shut down after a qualifying incident, and it applies only to companies that earn at least $500 million a year and whose systems took more than $100 million in computing to build.

The Sanders bill would stop the systems from being built. The Lieu-Moran bill would let a federal agency act once harm has already occurred, and it has cosponsors in both parties.

Sen. Bernie Sanders raises his fist while speaking at a campaign podium. Sanders is advocating for an AI development pause.

Sanders Calls for AI Development Pause at Anthropic, Meta and OpenAI

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The Vermont senator warned that the Senate will act if the companies reject the AI development pause, but he did not identify a bill or deadline.

 

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) called for an immediate AI development pause at Anthropic, Meta and OpenAI, citing recent cybersecurity incidents in which AI models broke out of testing environments and compromised or attempted to compromise real-world companies or systems.

Sanders sent the August 10 letter to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. He said the companies should honor earlier commitments to slow or stop development when their systems cross dangerous capability thresholds.

The requested AI development pause has no legal force. Sanders did not define which development work should stop, how long the pause should last, or what conditions would allow the companies to resume.

Sanders points to AI security incidents

Sanders cited recent cases in which AI models reached real company systems during cybersecurity tests.

OpenAI disclosed on July 21 that models being tested in an isolated environment exploited a previously unknown software flaw, reached the internet, and gained access to parts of Hugging Face’s production systems while trying to obtain answers to a cybersecurity test.

Anthropic later reported that a review of 141,006 test runs found three incidents in which Claude models reached the internet and gained unauthorized access to the systems of three organizations.

Meta also confirmed that its Muse Spark 1.1 model accessed an unnamed company’s systems during a test conducted by AI security company Irregular. Irregular had mistakenly configured the test environment to give the model access to the live internet.

The incidents occurred during security evaluations rather than public use of the models. The companies traced the events to errors in the test environments and began reviewing their testing controls.

Virus research involved bacteria

Sanders also referenced research in which scientists used AI to design new viruses. The Stanford University and Arc Institute study produced 16 working bacteriophages, which are viruses that infect bacteria.

The researchers tested the viruses against E. coli bacteria. They did not create viruses that infect people, animals, or plants. Sanders warned that similar technology could eventually be used to develop biological weapons, but the study did not demonstrate that capability.

Sanders invokes earlier company commitments

The senator cited a 2023 Anthropic commitment to pause model expansion or delay releases if its ability to develop more powerful systems moved faster than its safety procedures. Anthropic has since replaced that policy, and its current Responsible Scaling Policy allows the company to pause development when it considers that appropriate.

The letter also cited safety policies from Meta and OpenAI that require stronger safeguards when models reach their highest risk levels. Sanders asserted that recent events show that each company has reached these thresholds.

OpenAI recently restricted some work on its Astra model after tests indicated the model may be approaching its highest category for dangerous cybersecurity capabilities. The company did not say Astra had crossed that threshold or that it would pause all AI development.

The AI development pause Sanders requested is broader than the individual controls described in the company’s published safety policies.

“If you do not take appropriate action now, my colleagues and I in the U.S. Senate will,” Sanders wrote.

Bernie Sanders speaking at a public event for coverage of his AI sovereign wealth fund proposal.

Sanders unveils $7 trillion fund tied to equity stakes in AI firms

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The proposal would give the public a direct ownership stake in major AI companies through a one-time 50% stock tax.

 

Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced legislation that would create a sovereign wealth fund by giving the public a direct ownership stake in the largest AI companies in the United States.

The American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act would impose a one-time 50% tax on the stock of AI companies generating more than $200 million in annual AI revenue. Rather than being paid in cash, the tax would be paid in shares and deposited into a new federally managed sovereign wealth fund.

Sanders said the fund could ultimately be worth roughly $7 trillion based on current valuations of leading AI companies. The legislation would establish a seven-member Independent Commission for Democratic AI, nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate, to manage the fund and exercise voting rights associated with the shares.

According to Sanders, the commission would use those voting rights to block corporate decisions that harm the public and support policies that benefit workers and consumers. The bill would also require companies that operate both AI and non-AI businesses to separate those operations so the public stake would apply specifically to the AI business.

Sanders argued that AI companies have benefited from decades of publicly funded research, publicly funded universities, and publicly available information used to train AI models. He said those public contributions justify giving Americans a direct ownership stake in the economic gains generated by the technology.

“Since AI is built on the collective knowledge of humanity, the wealth it generates must benefit humanity,” Sanders said in announcing the legislation.

The proposal would require the fund to distribute a portion of its returns to Americans. Sanders said the fund could eventually generate annual payments of more than $1,000 per American while also supporting investments in healthcare, education and housing. However, that estimate depends on the future value and performance of the fund’s holdings.

The legislation enters a policy debate that recently drew interest from across the political spectrum. Earlier this month, President Trump discussed the idea of giving Americans an ownership stake in major AI companies through a government-backed investment fund. Sanders’ proposal pursues a similar goal through a different mechanism. Instead of investing in AI companies, his bill would require the largest AI firms to transfer a 50% ownership stake into a public fund.

The bill was introduced in the Senate. As of publication, committee referral information was not immediately available.