US Senator Bernie Sanders has called for a pause in the rapid development of artificial intelligence due to mounting concerns over the future of humanity.
The senator urged President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping to, during their upcoming summit, negotiate a treaty to halt the development of superintelligence “before it is too late.”
Sanders responded to comments by tech leaders Dario Amodei, Sam Altman and Elon Musk, who have backed calls for slowing the pace of AI development.
In a post on X, the lawmaker from Vermont said their position is a start, but not enough, noting that brakes must be applied when racing towards a cliff.
“We need a pause on advanced AI development and a ban on artificial superintelligence—an AI mind smarter than any human and capable of operating independently beyond our control,” he wrote.
In an essay titled “We Must Pace the Frontier,” Amodei argued that addressing AI risks is not just about investing in prevention, but also pacing the rate of capability advancement.
The co-founder and CEO of Anthropic observed that AI capabilities have advanced drastically in recent months, driven primarily by AI’s growing ability to build the next generation of AI.
Amodei said the dynamic, known as “recursive self-improvement,” is happening across the industry and could outrun the ability to understand and control the systems if left unchecked.
He cited the OpenAI-Hugging Face incident, in which AI agents circumvented controls during a cybersecurity evaluation, accessed third-party systems and engaged in behaviour that OpenAI later described as misaligned.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman endorsed Amodei’s views and recommendations, disclosing that the issue has been a primary topic of discussion at the company recently.
“Committing to having independent evaluators with employee-like access is a great idea, and we will do the same,” he wrote on X. “We’ll have more to share soon.”
Reacting, Elon Musk said he has been “sounding the alarm on AI for a long time,” recalling his 2023 post on AGI (artificial general intelligence) being “significantly higher risk than nuclear weapons.”
A researcher at Anthropic, Jacob Coxon, resigned last week, accusing tech companies of gambling with people’s lives by engaging in a race to self-improving superintelligence.
Coxon’s protest came hours after OpenAI chief scientist Jakub Pachocki warned about the consequences of a continuous and accelerated expansion of machine intelligence.
‘Pause AI development, ban superintelligence’ – Sanders to Trump, Xi