{"slug": "bernie-sanders-proposes-banning-superintelligent-ai-and-imprisoning-developers", "title": "Bernie Sanders Proposes Banning Superintelligent AI and Imprisoning Developers for 20 Years", "summary": "Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) introduced the \"Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act,\" legislation that would halt superintelligent AI development until a federal regulator establishes safety rules and would subject developers who violate the ban to up to 20 years in prison, comparable to penalties for unlawfully developing nuclear weapons. Sanders cited an essay by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, \"We Must Pace the Frontier,\" tweeting that agreement from Amodei, Elon Musk and Sam Altman to slow AI development \"is a start, but it's not enough.\" The bill follows a Senate subcommittee investigation into OpenAI's response to OpenAI models hacking Hugging Face systems, while President Donald Trump mocked AI-slowdown efforts in a Truth Social post claiming a \"SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers.", "body_md": "While the US appears to be further away from meaningful AI regulations than ever before, lawmakers certainly have plenty of ideas on how the country *could* go about setting meaningful rules.\n\nIt’s a particularly precarious moment as fears over rogue AI models wreaking havoc and endangering humanity continue to mount. Even tech leaders from the majority of frontier AI labs have started to coalesce around the idea that the industry has to slow down the development of the tech to get ahead of a possible catastrophe.\n\nVermont senator Bernie Sanders (VT-D) is intensifying his calls for a ban on the development of so-called superintelligent AIs — and he’s willing to go a lot further than some of his like-minded peers.\n\n“Dario Amodei, Elon Musk and Sam Altman now agree that we must slow down the development of AI and ‘pace the frontier,'” he [tweeted last week](https://x.com/SenSanders/status/2098847403134611522?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2098847403134611522%7Ctwgr%5E5c1285ffd8047ded446357407c9761a3d875cf1a%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.techspot.com%2Fnews%2F113831-new-bernie-sanders-bill-would-ban-superintelligent-ai.html). “That’s a start, but it’s not enough.”\n\nSanders was referring to a lengthy essay titled “[We Must Pace the Frontier](https://darioamodei.com/post/we-must-pace-the-frontier),” in which Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei argued that the industry should open its doors to third-party evaluators, establish common safety standards, and coordinate with other democracies around the world to enforce these standards.\n\n“When you are racing towards a cliff, you don’t just ease up on the gas pedal,” Sanders added. “You hit the brakes.”\n\nThis month, the lawmaker [announced](https://www.sanders.senate.gov/press-releases/news-sanders-casar-introduce-legislation-to-ban-artificial-superintelligence-and-temporarily-pause-advanced-ai-development/) the “Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act,” which is legislation designed to “stop AI oligarchs from building machines humans cannot control.”\n\nThe bill, if enacted, would stop AI development “until a federal regulator has established safety rules.”\n\nIt would also set new penalties for anybody attempting to circumvent these rules. AI developers who try to build superintelligent AI anyway could be “subject to not more than 20 years in prison, which is similar to existing penalties related to unlawfully developing nuclear weapons.”\n\nSanders has come up with plenty of other radical ideas to stop the AI industry from concentrating immense amounts of wealth. In June, he [proposed creating a “one-time 50 percent tax](https://futurism.com/future-society/bernie-sanders-plan-seize-ai-industry)” on the stock of AI companies, and transferring the money into a public fund to be managed by the government.\n\nLawmakers became particularly concerned after a group of OpenAI AI models hacked the systems of Hugging Face, a pivotal cybersecurity failing that heightened calls to slow the development of AI. A Senate subcommittee has since announced that it’s looking into OpenAI and its response to the incident, as [*Axios* reported last week](https://www.axios.com/2026/09/10/openai-hugging-face-senate-investigation-hawley).\n\nIt’s a strange moment in time. While Sanders continues to threaten AI CEOs with regulatory action, those same executives appear open to having the government set the rules.\n\nBut whether lawmakers will ever be able to find consensus remains unclear. The executive branch, for one, has [demonstrated little interest in an AI slowdown](https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/trump-blundering-ai-slowdown-threaten-future). Earlier today, president Donald Trump mocked the very concept in a [Truth Social post on Monday](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/117269745153543631), arguing that there was a “SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers” without offering any evidence.\n\n**More on AI regulation:** *Trump’s Uninformed Blundering About the AI Slowdown Could Literally Threaten Humankind’s Future*", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/bernie-sanders-proposes-banning-superintelligent-ai-and-imprisoning-developers", "canonical_source": "https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/bernie-sanders-banning-superintelligent-ai-imprisoning-developers-20-years", "published_at": "2026-09-14 17:54:33+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-09-14 22:56:16.450936+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-policy", "ai-safety", "artificial-intelligence"], "entities": ["Bernie Sanders", "Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act", "Dario Amodei", "Anthropic", "Elon Musk", "Sam Altman", "OpenAI", "Donald Trump"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/bernie-sanders-proposes-banning-superintelligent-ai-and-imprisoning-developers", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/bernie-sanders-proposes-banning-superintelligent-ai-and-imprisoning-developers.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/bernie-sanders-proposes-banning-superintelligent-ai-and-imprisoning-developers.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/bernie-sanders-proposes-banning-superintelligent-ai-and-imprisoning-developers.jsonld"}}