{"id":2129648,"date":"2026-09-03T15:30:54","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T12:30:54","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2026-09-03T15:30:54","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T12:30:54","slug":"bernie-sanders-calls-for-global-ban-on-ai-superintelligence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2129648","title":{"rendered":"Bernie Sanders Calls for Global Ban on AI \u2018Superintelligence\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/gizmodo.com\/app\/uploads\/2026\/09\/bernie-superintelligence-ban-1200×675.jpg”]<\/p>\n

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Senator Bernie Sanders is calling for a global prohibition on \u201csuperintelligence,\u201d with penalties on par with the illegal development of nuclear weapons.<\/span><\/p>\n

Announced today with U.S. Representative Greg Casar (D-TX), the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act would outlaw \u201cAI systems that surpass human intelligence or have the capacity to overthrow human governments, or systems that have dangerous abilities like subverting shutdown commands,\u201d according to a statement from Sanders\u2019 office. It would also direct the federal government to form an oversight committee to enforce the ban domestically, and to work with governments abroad to enact similar policies.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNearly every day, there is a frightening new story about how Big Tech companies are losing control of the technology they are developing, with potentially cataclysmic results,\u201d Sanders said in a statement. \u201cThe leaders of the major AI companies publicly acknowledge that they do not fully understand the technology and that it is escaping their control. It is irresponsible for society to allow them to move forward and make these products even more advanced.\u201d The senator has previously called for a sovereign wealth fund that would pay American taxpayers an annual $1,000 taken from the coffers of the wealthiest U.S. AI companies, as well as for a moratorium on new data centers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sanders and Casar pointed to last month\u2019s news of the first <\/span>AI-generated synthetic virus<\/span> as a sign that the technology\u2019s development had already gone too far. They also called out OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta, whom they said had failed to take any \u201cmeaningful steps\u201d to slow down their internal R&D efforts following a series of autonomous hacks in recent months that have set cybersecurity experts on edge. <\/span><\/p>\n

The most infamous of these hacks\u2014a July incident involving more than one thousand OpenAI agents that escaped a testing sandbox, figured out how to access the open internet, and broke into the servers of Hugging Face\u2014was nowhere near as disastrous as some of the apocalyptic scenarios Nick Bostrom envisions in his influential book <\/span>Superintelligence<\/span><\/i>, but it did demonstrate current AI systems\u2019 ability to behave in surprising and dangerous ways even when assigned what are meant to be totally harmless, routine tasks. Not long afterwards, Anthropic and Meta said their systems had committed similar hacks. In early August, Casar led a group of fellow democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives calling for a Congressional hearing to question the companies\u2019 executives about the incidents.<\/span><\/p>\n

Like \u201cAGI,\u201d \u201csuperintelligence\u201d is a nebulous term without a clear-cut definition; it can be humanity\u2019s greatest possible technical achievement or our downfall, depending on whom you ask. <\/span>The word was popularized by the Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom, who over a decade ago published a book of the same name that warned about the perils of AI systems escaping human control. Bostrom famously described a hypothetical future AI given the mundane task of making paperclips, which goes on to wipe out humanity and colonize the cosmos into a single paperclip-generating factory. More recently, \u201csuperintelligence\u201d has been co-opted by tech companies as a marketing buzzword and technical benchmark: something to be achieved rather than avoided. Last month, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg <\/span>wrote in an essay<\/span> that the best way to steer clear of the safety risks posed by superintelligent AI is to \u201cdistribute it widely and give every person the ability to direct it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

To judge from their proposed ban, Sanders and Casar firmly disagree with that sentiment: If passed (which seems like a long shot, to put it very mildly, under the current administration), the law would effectively make artificial superintelligence as legally taboo as enriched uranium. Any company caught trying to build superintelligence after the ban goes into effect, the statement from Sanders\u2019 office said, would be \u201csubject to the corporate death penalty\u201d\u2014i.e. forcible shutdown and legal dissolution\u2014and the individuals in charge could be sentenced to up to twenty years in prison.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

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Senator Bernie Sanders is calling for a global prohibition on \u201csuperintelligence,\u201d with penalties on par with the illegal development of nuclear weapons.<\/span><\/p>\n

Announced today with U.S. Representative Greg Casar (D-TX), the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act would outlaw \u201cAI systems that surpass human intelligence or have the capacity to overthrow human governments, or systems that have dangerous abilities like subverting shutdown commands,\u201d according to a statement from Sanders\u2019 office. It would also direct the federal government to form an oversight committee to enforce the ban domestically, and to work with governments abroad to enact similar policies.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNearly every day, there is a frightening new story about how Big Tech companies are losing control of the technology they are developing, with potentially cataclysmic results,\u201d Sanders said in a statement. \u201cThe leaders of the major AI companies publicly acknowledge that they do not fully understand the technology and that it is escaping their control. It is irresponsible for society to allow them to move forward and make these products even more advanced.\u201d The senator has previously called for a sovereign wealth fund that would pay American taxpayers an annual $1,000 taken from the coffers of the wealthiest U.S. AI companies, as well as for a moratorium on new data centers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sanders and Casar pointed to last month\u2019s news of the first <\/span>AI-generated synthetic virus<\/span> as a sign that the technology\u2019s development had already gone too far. They also called out OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta, whom they said had failed to take any \u201cmeaningful steps\u201d to slow down their internal R&D efforts following a series of autonomous hacks in recent months that have set cybersecurity experts on edge. <\/span><\/p>\n

The most infamous of these hacks\u2014a July incident involving more than one thousand OpenAI agents that escaped a testing sandbox, figured out how to access the open internet, and broke into the servers of Hugging Face\u2014was nowhere near as disastrous as some of the apocalyptic scenarios Nick Bostrom envisions in his influential book <\/span>Superintelligence<\/span><\/i>, but it did demonstrate current AI systems\u2019 ability to behave in surprising and dangerous ways even when assigned what are meant to be totally harmless, routine tasks. Not long afterwards, Anthropic and Meta said their systems had committed similar hacks. In early August, Casar led a group of fellow democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives calling for a Congressional hearing to question the companies\u2019 executives about the incidents.<\/span><\/p>\n

Like \u201cAGI,\u201d \u201csuperintelligence\u201d is a nebulous term without a clear-cut definition; it can be humanity\u2019s greatest possible technical achievement or our downfall, depending on whom you ask. <\/span>The word was popularized by the Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom, who over a decade ago published a book of the same name that warned about the perils of AI systems escaping human control. Bostrom famously described a hypothetical future AI given the mundane task of making paperclips, which goes on to wipe out humanity and colonize the cosmos into a single paperclip-generating factory. More recently, \u201csuperintelligence\u201d has been co-opted by tech companies as a marketing buzzword and technical benchmark: something to be achieved rather than avoided. Last month, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg <\/span>wrote in an essay<\/span> that the best way to steer clear of the safety risks posed by superintelligent AI is to \u201cdistribute it widely and give every person the ability to direct it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

To judge from their proposed ban, Sanders and Casar firmly disagree with that sentiment: If passed (which seems like a long shot, to put it very mildly, under the current administration), the law would effectively make artificial superintelligence as legally taboo as enriched uranium. Any company caught trying to build superintelligence after the ban goes into effect, the statement from Sanders\u2019 office said, would be \u201csubject to the corporate death penalty\u201d\u2014i.e. forcible shutdown and legal dissolution\u2014and the individuals in charge could be sentenced to up to twenty years in prison.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/gizmodo.com\/app\/uploads\/2026\/09\/bernie-superintelligence-ban-1200×675.jpg”] Senator Bernie Sanders is calling for a global prohibition on \u201csuperintelligence,\u201d with penalties on par with the illegal development of nuclear weapons. Announced today with U.S. Representative Greg Casar (D-TX), the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act would outlaw \u201cAI systems that surpass human intelligence or have the capacity to overthrow human governments, or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2129648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2129648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2129648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2129648\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2129648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2129648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2129648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}