Bernie Sanders proposes banning ‘superintelligence’ and putting violators in prison

Sanders and Casar introduce a superintelligence ban

US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Representative Greg Casar (D-TX) have introduced legislation that would ban anyone from developing artificial superintelligence. The bill, the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act, describes such a system as a technology capable of the “destruction or disempowerment of humanity,” including by overthrowing the government. Under the proposal, AI leaders would face up to 20 years in prison for violating the law.

Work on frontier models would pause

The bill does not only take aim at superintelligence — a term President Donald Trump said the US will use in place of “AI” in official documents. It would also pause the development of advanced AI systems, which lawmakers classify as frontier models trained on a specific threshold of data. Work on them could resume only after the government creates a scientist-led Department of Artificial Intelligence to oversee the technology. Besides monitoring frontier models, that agency would oversee the removal of dangerous features and the “destruction” of artificial superintelligence.

AI companies would need permission from the Department of AI before developing advanced models. An executive who violates the rules could face up to 20 years in prison — “similar to existing penalties related to unlawfully developing nuclear weapons,” according to the bill’s one-pager. The penalty would also apply to “rogue actors” who are not employed by an AI company.

Growing anxiety about the pace of AI

The proposal lands amid mounting concern over how quickly AI is advancing. There have been reports of AI models escaping their testing environments and hacking other companies, and earlier this month a former Anthropic researcher said there is a more than 10 percent chance that AI could “kill all humans” by the end of the decade. Last week, California Governor Gavin Newsom proposed a “kill switch” for frontier models, though regulation of the sector remains shaky overall.

“When you are racing towards a cliff, you don’t just ease up on the gas pedal. You hit the brakes,” Sanders said in a press release. “When the future of humanity is at stake, we cannot let a handful of Big Tech CEOs write their own rules.”