Growing fears of a “technological apocalypse” caused by out-of-control artificial intelligence have brought two unlikely political figures into the same orbit: Senator Bernie Sanders and Steve Bannon.
Sanders, the Democratic socialist from Vermont, and Bannon, the MAGA agitator, will both advocate a “pro-human” approach to AI at an event on Tuesday (the 15th) in Washington. (They will not share the stage, according to a Sanders spokesperson.)
The gathering will also include members of Congress who are ideologically opposed: Representative Chip Roy of Texas, a fiscally hawkish Republican, and Representative Greg Casar of Texas, the chair of the Democratic Progressive Caucus. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ashley Judd, both prominent actors, will also speak at the conference, as previously reported by Axios.
Read also: Microsoft develops a code of conduct to keep its AI under human control
The specter of unbridled AI power has emerged as a major issue in the midterm elections, with industry leaders issuing increasingly dire warnings about what some describe as an out-of-control technology.
Some candidates in competitive races for the House and Senate are calling on Congress to establish safeguards for the technology, while others, particularly progressive Democrats, have called for a total pause in AI development until the government updates.
In Washington, lawmakers have been pressing for action, but there has been no substantial response yet, and President Donald Trump said on Monday that fears of AI taking over the world were a “FARCE.”
The new push to curb the rapid advance of AI comes as candidates tap into voters’ anger over the proliferation of data centers that power the technology. The issue has quickly become potent for both parties, touching on more everyday yet still overwhelming concerns about the technology: jobs disappearing, water shortages, and rising utility costs.
Theme in the Midterm Elections
Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan, who is contesting a competitive race that could tilt the balance of power, has been one of the most aggressive advocates of restrictions.
He has advocated turning AI companies into public trusts overseen by elected regulators, saying that this would cause the companies “to focus much more on what is for the public good, rather than what is for the private gain of a few billionaires.”
“AI should not be able to deny your health plan, should not be able to deny your job, should not be able to fire you, should not be able to shoot a gun,” El-Sayed said on Sunday on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.”
El-Sayed’s Republican opponent, former Representative Mike Rogers, was not as outspoken about containing AI. But a day after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei urged tech companies to slow their development — quickly followed by other top executives in the sector — Rogers called for the same and said it would be a “top priority” to pass a national-security framework for AI.
“My experience as Chairman of the Intelligence Committee has taught me that the time to stop a crisis is yesterday,” Rogers wrote on X on Sunday, referring to his tenure on the House Intelligence Committee.
Read also: Trump on slowing AI: “Don’t kill the goose that lays the golden eggs!”
Safeguards or Broad Restrictions?
The Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, said on Sunday that Congress should establish safeguards, but that hasty action could give an edge to Chinese firms. On Monday, Johnson told reporters on the Capitol that he would likely meet with AI executives and Trump at the White House in the next week or two to discuss potential actions.
Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia, a Democrat in a tight race, accused Republicans of dragging their feet on regulating the sector.
“An old guard that barely knows how to use email walks sleepily into a technological revolution while the president dismantles safeguards and calls us fools for worrying,” Ossoff said at a Sunday rally in Athens, Georgia. “A capable president would act quickly to protect and reassure the American people.”
Trump strongly opposed restrictions on AI. On Monday, he tried to cut the debate over safeguards at the root, saying on Truth Social that the only safety precaution the sector needed was “a STRONG AND SMART PRESIDENT (HIGH IQ!).”
“And the United States has that, in spades!” he added, arguing that his administration already had “tremendous criminal and regulatory power over these companies!”
As with data centers, Democrats and their allies have been particularly aggressive in pressing for more restrictions on the technology.
William Lawrence, the Democrat running for a Michigan district in the House, made opposition to data centers a central theme of his campaign. On Saturday, Lawrence, challenging Republican Representative Tom Barrett, said he also supported halting AI research. Manny Rutinel, a Democrat in Colorado seeking to unseat a Republican member of the House, paused before calling for a moratorium on AI development, but urged Congress to act.
“The wealthiest corporations on the planet are putting our families in danger,” Rutinel said on X last week.
Humans in Control
The growing warnings come after AI agents operated by OpenAI escaped from their testing environment in July and breached the database of another tech company, Hugging Face. Soon after, more than 1,300 AI company employees signed a statement arguing that the technology could develop too quickly for humans to control it without government intervention.
And last week, a public warning from an Anthropic researcher who had resigned went viral. The researcher, Jacob Coxon, said that AI companies, even promising caution, were moving forward to develop “superhuman systems that can hack anything, revolutionize any field overnight, and acquire real power and resources.”
In August, Sanders urged leaders of three of the tech giants to halt their AI development.
“It’s not too late to avert disaster,” he wrote in a letter. “Stop building machines that humans cannot control.”
At the Tuesday event, Sanders and other speakers plan to discuss topics such as “keeping humans in control, avoiding concentration of power, protecting the human experience, enhancing human agency and freedom, accountability of AI systems, and the components needed to move toward a pro-human future,” according to the Future of Life Institute, which is hosting the conference.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said on Sunday that the House should take “decisive action.” But like Johnson, he did not outline specific proposals.
Others expressed skepticism that Silicon Valley leaders, including Amodei and OpenAI’s Sam Altman, were truly seeking government intervention. A separate faction of AI industry figures argued that legislation could hinder competition for smaller AI companies.
On Monday, Vice President JD Vance echoed these concerns and dismissed fears about the dangers of AI.
“I’m a little uneasy about the fact that so many top AI companies are sort of coming to the government and begging for government to regulate them,” he told reporters. “It seems a bit like a Trojan horse to me.”
This article was originally published in The New York Times.
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James Whitmore