<p>Several House Democrats, including Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA), have expressed support for a bill aimed at banning artificial superintelligence. The legislation was introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Representative Greg Casar (D-TX).</p>
<p>The bill defines artificial superintelligence as an artificial intelligence model that exceeds human cognitive performance and capabilities across most domains or tasks. It also proposes the establishment of a federal "Department of Artificial Intelligence" to oversee the regulation of such models.</p>
<p>Ocasio-Cortez and Khanna are co-sponsoring the bill along with Representatives Analilia Mejia (D-NJ), Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ), Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ), Val Hoyle (D-OR), Stephen Lynch (D-MA), Chuy Garcia (D-IL), Chris Deluzio (D-PA), and Nydia Velazquez (D-NY), according to Politico.</p>
<p>Representative Ansari stated, "We absolutely have to slow down and regulate the advancement of dangerous AI technologies that have the potential to spiral out-of-control and threaten humanity." The legislation seeks to pause the development of AI frontier models until the proposed federal agency is established.</p>
<p>Senator Sanders remarked, "In my view, we cannot simply sit by idly and wait for advanced AI to cause the next 9/11 or Chernobyl or a global pandemic or a financial crisis before we take action to protect the American people and, of course, the people of the world." This bill is considered one of the strictest proposals regarding AI regulation to arise from ongoing discussions in Congress.</p>
<p>AI regulation has gained significant attention in September, particularly following the resignation of Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon, who raised concerns about the existential risks posed by AI. Leaders from various frontier model labs, including Dario Amodei of Anthropic, Sam Altman of OpenAI, and Elon Musk of xAI, have also called for a national slowdown in the development of frontier models and for federal regulation of AI.</p>