Dems beg Trump to work with Xi Jinping on slowing AI as Bernie unveils bill to ban superintelligence
WASHINGTON — A group of senators is pleading with President Trump to work toward a deal with China’s Xi Jinping to effectively pump the brakes on artificial intelligence development due to safety concerns.Seventeen senators led by progressive Sen.Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) sent a missive to Trump on Wednesday encouraging the two global superpowers to evaluate potential safety guardrails for AI.“America leads in AI innovation, and we must lead the world in AI safety and international cooperation, including by working with China to develop a formal agreement that would slow down, and potentially enact a mutual pause in, frontier AI development,” the letter, first reported by Politico, said.They cited the risks of AI being used for cyberattacks, biological weapon development, and other “dangerous activities.”Meanwhile, Sen.
Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep.Greg Casar (D-Texas) teamed up on a new bill to ban artificial “superintelligence” — systems that surpass human cognition, outlaw development of recursive self-improvement AI, and set up a cabinet-level AI regulatory agency.The bill, first reported by the Associated Press, would also require AI companies to pause development of the nascent technology until the regulatory agency is established.Ahead of Trump’s high-stakes meeting with Xi in the White House, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and China’s Vice Premier He Lifeng announced an agreement on an AI notification system in which both countries would keep each other in the loop about the technology going rogue.
Fears about AI reached a fever pitch over recent weeks following the viral resignation of Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon, who warned that tech companies are “gambling with our lives.”Soon thereafter, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called for a global slowdown in the development of the technology.Altman pointed to an incident over the summer, where an OpenAI model that was training on ExploitGym with some key...