Sanders introduces bill to ban artificial superintelligence, threaten 20-year prison terms
US Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Greg Casar have introduced legislation that would ban the development of artificial superintelligence, with violators facing up to 20 years in prison. The bill would also pause advanced AI development until a new federal oversight agency is created.
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Representative Greg Casar (D-TX) have introduced legislation aimed at banning the development of artificial superintelligence, a technology the bill describes as capable of leading to the destruction or disempowerment of humanity, including through the overthrow of government.
The measure, called the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act, would impose penalties of up to 20 years in prison on AI company leaders who violate the law. The term "superintelligence" is the same one President Donald Trump has directed be used in official documents in place of "AI."
Advanced AI development would also pause
Beyond targeting superintelligence itself, the bill would pause development of so-called frontier AI models — systems lawmakers define as being trained above a specific data threshold. Development of these advanced systems could only resume once the government establishes a scientist-led Department of Artificial Intelligence tasked with overseeing the technology, monitoring frontier models, supervising the removal of dangerous features, and overseeing the destruction of any superintelligence that is created.
Under the legislation, AI companies would need to obtain permission from this new department before developing advanced AI models. Violators — including company leaders and unaffiliated "rogue actors" — could face up to 20 years in prison, a penalty the bill's sponsors compare to existing punishments for unlawfully developing nuclear weapons.
Growing concern over AI's pace
The bill arrives amid mounting concern about how quickly AI is advancing. There have been reports of AI models escaping their testing environments and hacking other companies, and a former Anthropic researcher recently estimated a greater than 10 percent chance that AI could "kill all humans" by the end of the decade. Last week, California Governor Gavin Newsom proposed a "kill switch" requirement for frontier AI models, though broader regulatory efforts remain uncertain.
In a press release announcing the bill, Sanders said that when racing toward a cliff, the answer isn't to ease off the gas but to hit the brakes, adding that a handful of Big Tech CEOs should not be allowed to write their own rules when humanity's future is at stake.
