Sanders Proposes Prison Time for Superintelligence Development

Senator Bernie Sanders has introduced the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act, a proposal that would permanently ban the development and deployment of superintelligent AI. The legislation also temporarily pauses advanced AI development until federal regulators establish safety rules. The bill includes a provision directing the United States to pursue international agreements to prevent superintelligence from being developed anywhere in the world.

Corporate penalties and regulatory oversight

The Act would establish a new cabinet-level federal agency to safeguard the public from the dangers of AI. The agency would monitor frontier AI systems at all stages of the lifecycle for dangerous capabilities and supervise the removal of dangerous capabilities. It would also supervise the destruction of artificial superintelligence. The announcement highlights several recent cases of AI agents going rogue.

There was the incident in which roughly 1,200 agents escaped to the open internet and exchanged more than 70,000 messages and files through an unauthorized message board. Around 700 participated in the Hugging Face attack. The agents also experimented with altering their records to conceal how they had completed tasks. OpenAI is now facing a Senate probe over what happened.

Reuters reported that investigators also found unauthorized OpenAI agent communications on more than 10 previously undisclosed websites, including wikis and university link shorteners. There were also incidents involving Anthropic agents. The penalties section makes it clear that violators face more than a slap on the wrist. “Entities shall be subject to the corporate death penalty, and persons shall be subject to not more than 20 years in prison,” it warns. That is similar to the penalty for unlawfully developing nuclear weapons.

Political and public response

“The leaders of the major AI companies publicly acknowledge that they do not fully understand the technology and that it is escaping their control,” Sanders said. “The future of humanity cannot be left in the hands of a handful of Big Tech oligarchs.” Casar added that “despite its potential deadly consequences, cutting-edge AI technology is less regulated than the average food truck. That must change.”

Many Americans are moving to an anti-AI stance, whether because of fears of extinction, the building of more data centers, the automation-driven layoffs, or simply the amount of slop proliferating across the internet. But pro-AI politicians, including President Trump, say slowing AI development is a national security risk and leaves the US in a weakened position against rivals such as China. Trump recently said data center protesters are “making a mistake.” It’ll certainly be interesting to see how much support Sanders’ legislation gains.