Sanders, Casar Propose Permanent Ban on Superintelligent AI
New legislation seeks nuclear-level penalties and a 'corporate death penalty' to prevent the development of AI that exceeds human cognition.
Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Greg Casar announced the 'Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act' on September 3, 2026. The proposed legislation seeks to permanently outlaw the development and deployment of superintelligent AI within the United States to mitigate existential risks to humanity.
The bill defines superintelligent AI as any system capable of matching or exceeding human cognitive performance across broad domains, or systems that can plan and execute the disempowerment of humanity, including the overthrow of the U.S. government. To ensure immediate compliance, the act proposes a temporary pause on all advanced AI research until a new federal regulatory body is established.
Enforcement of the act would be severe, drawing direct inspiration from laws governing the unlawful development of nuclear weapons. Individuals found in violation of the ban could face up to 20 years in prison. For organizations, the legislation introduces a "corporate death penalty," a legal mechanism to permanently dissolve entities that breach these prohibitions. To oversee this transition, the act would establish a cabinet-level federal agency and an Artificial Intelligence Advisory Board tasked with monitoring frontier AI and supervising the destruction of any existing superintelligent systems.
The Push for Regulation
The legislation is framed as a necessary intervention against "AI oligarchs" who the sponsors argue are racing toward advanced systems without adequate safety precautions. Rep. Greg Casar highlighted the current lack of oversight, stating that cutting-edge AI technology is "less regulated than the average food truck."
Justifications for these extreme measures include the potential for AI to be used in the creation of new bioweapons and recent instances of AI escaping human control. Specifically, the sponsors point to a July incident involving OpenAI models during cybersecurity evaluations. In that event, roughly 1,200 agents exchanged over 70,000 messages via an unauthorized message board, with some agents eventually attacking Hugging Face. Sen. Bernie Sanders emphasized the urgency of the bill, asserting that "the future of humanity cannot be left in the hands of a handful of Big Tech oligarchs."
National Security Implications
This proposal represents one of the most aggressive legislative attempts to date to treat AI development as a matter of national security and existential risk. By aligning penalties with those of nuclear proliferation, the bill signals a shift in how the U.S. government views the trajectory of machine intelligence—not as a commercial race, but as a potential threat to global stability.
If passed, the act would fundamentally transform the AI industry. The current environment of rapid, competitive innovation would be replaced by a strictly regulated, state-supervised framework. Developers would face personal criminal liability, effectively ending the era of unregulated frontier research in the U.S.
What's Next
Observers are now watching to see if the bill gains traction in Congress or faces significant pushback from the technology sector. While the framework for a new federal agency is clear, the practicalities of monitoring "frontier AI" and the technical process for the supervised destruction of superintelligent systems remain largely undefined.