Sen. Bernie Sanders unveils bill to ban artificial superintelligence and
create Department of AI
[September 23, 2026]
By JOEY CAPPELLETTI
Washington (AP) — Two leading progressive lawmakers, Sen. Bernie Sanders
and Rep. Greg Casar, are unveiling legislation Wednesday that would ban
artificial superintelligence and create a federal agency to oversee
advanced AI as some of the industry’s own leaders urge Congress to
impose guardrails on the advancing technology.
The bill, provided first to The Associated Press, would also pause
advanced AI development until guidelines are implemented while creating
the Department of Artificial Intelligence. Multiple employees at leading
AI companies are endorsing the bill.
"It doesn’t take a genius to say, ‘slow it down,’” Sanders, I-Vt., said
in an interview with AP. “Do we really want to develop a super
intelligence that when it becomes smarter than human beings could act
independently of human control? I don’t think we do.”
Congress has so far done little to rein in the AI industry even as some
of its most prominent leaders warn about potentially catastrophic risks.
President Donald Trump has resisted recent calls for greater government
oversight, putting him at odds with tech leaders including Anthropic’s
Dario Amodei, OpenAI’s Sam Altman and xAI’s Elon Musk.
The bill aims to dramatically slow down AI development
The legislation would permanently prohibit artificial superintelligence,
which it defines as a system that exceeds human cognitive ability or has
sufficient capabilities to plan and execute the destruction or
disempowerment of humanity.
It would temporarily pause development of the most advanced AI systems
until new federal safety rules are established by a new Department of
Artificial Intelligence. Advanced AI systems would then need federal
approval before they could be deployed. Violations could carry
significant penalties, including up to 20 years in prison in some cases.
A number of current employees at AI companies and experts signed on in
support of the bill, according to a statement shared with AP.
Juan Felipe Cerón Uribe, a researcher in OpenAI’s Safety Systems, said
in a statement supporting the bill that “superintelligence could either
go extremely right or extremely wrong” and that “we shouldn’t be playing
such games.”
Swante Scholz, a software engineer at Google DeepMind who said he was
not speaking on behalf of his employer, said on the current path of
development, the “most likely outcome is an existential catastrophe for
humanity.”
“A ban on superintelligence development would be a positive change for
the foreseeable future,” Scholz said in a statement.
The bill faces long odds but draws a line in a growing fight
The bill from Sanders and Casar faces long odds in the
Republican-controlled Congress, where lawmakers have struggled to
coalesce around even less sweeping AI regulations.
But it offers a window into how the progressive wing of the Democratic
Party is approaching AI regulation ahead of November’s midterms and a
2028 presidential campaign in which the technology is expected to be an
increasingly prominent issue. Casar, a Democrat from Texas, is the chair
of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
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Potential 2028 presidential candidates have rushed in recent weeks
to release proposals showing they're taking the issue seriously.
Maryland Democratic Gov. Wes Moore announced a plan to regulate AI
on Tuesday, while California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an
executive order to accelerate implementation of a California law
that calls for independent oversight of AI companies last week.
Sanders, a two-time presidential candidate who is now 85, has
especially focused on the issue in recent months. In June, he
introduced legislation to create a sovereign wealth fund financed
through a one-time tax on the stock of the largest AI companies.
Last week, he hosted colleagues for a briefing with experts and also
attended a conference focused on the issue alongside Republicans,
including former White House adviser Steve Bannon.
The debate over AI regulations has scrambled political alliances
both in Washington and for voters across the country.
Americans have grown more concerned about the environmental impacts
of artificial intelligence over the last year, according to a recent
poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs
Research and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of
Chicago.
The survey data say about half, 53%, of Americans are “extremely” or
“very” concerned about artificial intelligence’s environmental
impacts. That is up from 41% last year. Democrats are driving much
of the increase in environmental concern, but the poll also reveals
broader worries about the local impact of data centers, which power
AI and cloud computing.
Trump has shown little interest in curbing AI risks
While some industry leaders have called for new safeguards, Trump
has pushed in the opposite direction. On Tuesday, Trump told the
United Nations General Assembly that artificial intelligence will be
renamed “super intelligence."
“I think Trump has very little understanding of what this issue is
about,” Sanders said. “I think he’s mainly concerned about the
economic implications of a slowdown.”
AI safety is expected to be a central part of talks between Trump
and China’s Xi Jinping at the White House this week as the countries
compete for dominance in the sector. The prospect of slowing
development in the United States while China continues on has also
been one of the central arguments against sweeping restrictions.
Sanders argued that avoiding the most dangerous forms of AI would
ultimately require cooperation between the two countries, comparing
the challenge to nuclear arms control during the Cold War.
“Ronald Reagan, arch-conservative, was smart enough to understand
that he had to sit down with Gorbachev, a communist, and work out a
nuclear treaty that protected humanity,” Sanders said. “I think we
can do that again now.”
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