US Senator Bernie Sanders on Sunday said Dario Amodei ,Sam Altman and Elon Musk’s call to slow down on AI development was a “start”, and urged US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping to negotiate a treaty to pause artificial intelligence at an upcoming summit.
The independent leader’s remarks come a day after three tech pioneers – Anthropic CEO Daario Amodei, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and xAI CEO Elon Musk – agreed upon a rare call to “slow down” on AI development.
“Dario Amodei, Elon Musk and Sam Altman now agree that we must slow down the development of AI and “pace the frontier.” That’s a start, but it’s not enough,” Sanders said in a post on X.
The call for slowing down AI development started after Amodei wrote about the risks of AI in a blog and pitched to “pace the frontier”.
Musk and Altman agreed to his views in separate posts on X.
Taking note of their agreement, Sanders, who himself has introduced a bill to prohibit superintelligent AI, said, “When you are racing towards a cliff, you don’t just ease up on the gas pedal. You hit the brakes.”
He once again called for a pause on advanced AI development citing the “future of humanity is at stake”.
“An AI mind smarter than any human and capable of operating independently beyond our control,” he wrote.
The Senator further urged Trump and Xi to negotiate a treaty on the same line at an upcoming AI Summit.
“At their upcoming AI summit, Trump and Xi must negotiate a treaty to pause AI and ban superintelligence before it is too late,” Sanders asserted.
The US Senator earlier this month introduced a new legislation seeking a permanent ban on superintelligent AI. The bill, whose full text has not been released yet, seeks to prevent the development of AI systems capable of operating independently beyond human control.
What AI Bosses Said
In a blog post on his personal website, Dario Amodei flagged the risks of AI earlier this week.
“AI brings risks, and because it is such a powerful technology, these risks are serious. I’ve written a lot about them too. They include the risk of losing control of AI systems, misuse of AI for cyberattacks and bioterrorism, and serious economic disruption. A race to the bottom, spurred by commercial incentives, can make these risks more acute,” he wrote.
He said over the last few months, he had realised that addressing AI risks require more prudence and just investing in prevention will not do the trick.
“We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models. Progress will still seem fast, and we must make wise use of the time we gain,” he wrote.
Agreeing with his view, OpenAI CEO said pacing AI growth has been the topic of discussion at his company in recent weeks. “Committing to having independent evaluators with employee-like access is a great idea, and we will do the same.”
Elon Musk, who runs xAI and has championed artificial intelligence for years, wrote, “Dario is right.”
