NEWS: Casar, Sanders Introduce Legislation to Create New Federal Agency to Ban Artificial Superintelligence, Pause Advanced AI Development

WASHINGTON - Today, Congressman Greg Casar (D-Texas) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduced the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act - legislation to stop artificial intelligence (AI) oligarchs from building machines humans cannot control and to pause advanced AI development until we have put in place rigorous federal testing and oversight to ensure AI does not harm humanity.

"Experts are warning that AI superintelligence, wielded by the wrong humans or by rogue AI, could kill countless numbers of people. But Donald Trump says he wants to encourage it. Something has to change," Congressman Casar said. "Our bill bans the development of artificial superintelligence and pushes for international agreements so that no one, anywhere, builds AI too powerful for humans to control. Furthermore, our bill would immediately halt other dangerous AI capabilities, such as the capacity to develop biochemical weapons, or the capacity for AI to develop new AI instead of humans."

"When you are racing towards a cliff, you don't just ease up on the gas pedal. You hit the brakes. When the future of humanity is at stake, we need binding international safety rules, not voluntary standards from the industry," Senator Sanders said. "Scientists have been clear: AI is an existential threat to humanity. It must be treated as such. This legislation will permanently ban the development of artificial superintelligence and would put in place an immediate pause on advanced AI development until we have clear safety rules in place - developed by the most knowledgeable scientists in our country. Congress must act now before it is too late."

The Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act will protect humanity by:

• Banning Artificial Superintelligence. No person or entity may develop or deploy Artificial Superintelligence - an AI that exceeds human cognitive performance and capabilities across most domains, or has sufficient capabilities to destroy or disempower humanity, including by overthrowing the federal government.
• Pausing Advanced AI development until a new, federal AI regulatory body is up and running and has established clear rules and model review process to ensure safe and secure development and deployment of AI.
• Establishing a new cabinet-level federal agency, the Department of Artificial Intelligence, to safeguard the public from the dangers of artificial intelligence, including by enforcing a prohibition on artificial superintelligence. This agency will be advised by the most knowledgeable scientists in our country to:
  • Monitor frontier AI systems at all stages of the lifecycle for dangerous capabilities.
  • Supervise the removal of dangerous capabilities like subverting shutdown commands or conducting unauthorized cyberattacks.
  • Supervise the destruction of artificial superintelligence.
• Setting penalties for any person or entity that attempts to violate or circumvent the pauses and prohibitions laid out in this bill. Entities shall be subject to the corporate death penalty, and persons shall be subject to not more than 20 years in prison, which is similar to existing penalties related to unlawfully developing nuclear weapons.
• Working to ban superintelligence around the world by setting the international policy of the United States to pursue international agreements, allied coordination, and policies such as export controls to prevent the development of artificial superintelligence anywhere in the world.

Read a summary here.

Read the bill text here.

Read a section-by-section summary here.