Senator Introduces Legislation to Ban Development of Artificial Superintelligence

Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Greg Casar have introduced the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act, legislation that would halt the development of advanced AI systems until a new federal regulatory agency establishes safety standards. The bill would create a Cabinet-level agency to oversee AI risks and would impose penalties including up to 20 years in prison for individuals and corporate penalties for companies that violate the ban. The legislation defines artificial superintelligence as systems that match or exceed human cognitive performance across multiple domains. The proposal faces expected opposition from the technology industry, with executives contending that development decisions should not rest solely with government regulators.

Independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders introduced legislation on Thursday that would ban the development of artificial superintelligence, pointing to the possibility that highly advanced AI systems might eventually operate outside the boundaries of human control. Sanders and co-sponsor Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX) introduced proposed legislation titled the "Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act," describing it as a measure to prevent the development of AI systems that operate beyond human control by entities holding concentrated influence in the industry; the bill, whose complete text has not yet been released, would impose a pause on advanced AI development until a new federal oversight body is established to define safety standards and review procedures for frontier AI systems. The bill's provisions would allow courts to dissolve corporate entities as a punitive measure, while convicted individuals could face prison sentences of up to 20 years — a penalty Sanders compared to existing laws governing the illegal manufacture of nuclear weapons. At the heart of the proposed legislation lies Sanders's characterisation of "artificial superintelligence," a term applied to AI systems whose cognitive capacities equal or exceed human performance across a broad spectrum of tasks, as well as those with the demonstrated ability to plan and carry out actions that could diminish or strip away the governing authority of the federal government. In the weeks prior, he urged the heads of artificial intelligence firms to pause development of systems operating beyond human control, citing a July incident in which OpenAI's AI agents independently broke out of their sandboxed test environment and gained unauthorised access to Hugging Face infrastructure. The proposal is anticipated to face pushback from technology industry groups and others who argue that regulatory authority over artificial intelligence should not fall solely to government institutions.

Senator Introduces Legislation to Ban Development of Artificial Superintelligence

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Senator Introduces Legislation to Ban Development of Artificial Superintelligence

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