If you were to take everything that the daffy old Bolshevik, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), doesn't know about economics or technology and laid it out in a line, it would circle the Earth several times. This is a guy who has never met a payroll, never had to worry about a bottom line, and who, in fact, has never done an honest day's work in his life. That hasn't stopped him from amassing a net worth in seven figures or from buying three expansive luxury homes, mind you, but I think we all know that his wealth didn't come from hard work and innovation.
In his latest episode of "I really don't have any idea what I'm doing," the Bolshevik Senator, along with another far-left counterpart, Rep. Greg Casar (TX-35), is co-sponsoring a proposal that would not just cripple American artificial intelligence (AI) development, but would actually criminalize it, while conceding the global AI race to China.
This is what we call "dumb as a bag of dirt."
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas, introduced legislation Thursday seeking to hit American artificial intelligence developers with a "corporate death penalty" and up to 20 years in prison— a move critics warn will hand a crucial edge in the global AI arms race to Beijing and Moscow.
The Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act would temporarily halt advanced AI development and establish a Cabinet-level federal agency authorized to oversee the physical destruction of non-compliant tech systems, likening advanced AI creation to the unlawful development of nuclear weapons. The measure explicitly targets systems capable of matching or exceeding human cognitive performance—specifically outlawing any AI model that exhibits the capacity to subvert shutdown commands, execute unauthorized cyberattacks, or undermine the U.S. government.
But while progressives frame the measure as an urgent check on "AI oligarchs," experts are warning that imposing sweeping criminal penalties on U.S. firms will severely handicap domestic innovation, while foreign adversaries will be able to continue expanding their capabilities unchecked.
The politics of envy; that's all this is. It doesn't matter what new technology is being developed; it doesn't matter that the United States contends with our primary geopolitical rival in the AI arms race, China. It's all about regulating what's moving and making sure nobody makes too much money on it.
Are there risks involved in this new technology? Yes, as there are with any new technology. But threatening to jail developers isn't the way to address those risks.
"If the United States stops developing advanced AI, China is unlikely to follow. Surrendering the lead in a potentially transformative technology would carry serious economic and national security costs," Daniel Castro, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a leading nonpartisan tech-innovation policy think tank, said in response to Sanders' proposal.
"A permanent, unilateral ban on all research into superhuman AI is too broad," added Gary Marcus, an AI expert who has testified on the matter before the U.S. Senate. He added that the proposed law was "a guarantee" the U.S. would be left behind when it comes to artificial intelligence advancements, describing it as "not the right approach," even though he said there were some aspects of the proposed bill that were "defensible."
That's the problem. We may rein in our AI developers. China won't. And the only way we can understand and hopefully counter anything they are developing with ill intent is to stay ahead of that curve, not to shut down or even impede domestic development.
This new technology isn't going away. It's here now. China is working on it full tilt, as are, almost certainly, plenty of other bad actors around the world. If the United States doesn't want to wander into the AI world with the technological equivalent of a Curtiss Jenny while China is flying sixth-generation jet fighters, then we have to stay out in front of them, and of Russia, and Iran, and North Korea, and every other unfriendly country in the world.
The simple fact here is that Senator Sanders has no freaking idea what he's doing. But then, he has a long history of that, starting from his days as a failed carpenter's apprentice to his honeymoon in the Soviet Union to date. If there's such a thing as a poster child for term limits, it's Bernie Sanders, and even for him, this is a stupid idea.
Of course, there's one good thing: This bill has about as much chance of passing the House and Senate as there is of Bernie Sanders suddenly reading Dr. Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics and suddenly announcing his conversion to free-market, free-trade capitalism. So, there's that.