{"id":36574,"date":"2026-08-10T14:24:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T09:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=36574"},"modified":"2026-08-10T14:24:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T09:24:13","slug":"exclusive-sanders-calls-for-ai-development-pause","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=36574","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive: Sanders calls for AI development pause"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.axios.com\/BRXodruI2PwAUUVnzRZuCUwI--w=\/0x0:7019x3948\/1366x768\/2026\/08\/09\/1786313524085.jpeg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is urging leading AI CEOs to pause <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/technology\/automation-and-ai\" target=\"_blank\">AI<\/a> development, warning that lawmakers will step in if no action is taken. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Why it matters: <\/strong>Sanders is upping the ante on the AI industry ahead of the elections, building on his progressive playbook that is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/05\/29\/inside-democratic-resistance-ai\" target=\"_blank\">shaping how some candidates<\/a> message around the issue.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p><strong>What they&#8217;re saying: <\/strong>&#8220;Mr. Altman, Mr. Amodei and Mr. Zuckerberg: In the interest of humanity, stand by your words. Pause AI development. It is not too late to avoid disaster. Stop building machines that humans cannot control,&#8221; Sanders wrote in a letter shared first with Axios.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;Let me be very clear: If you do not take appropriate action now, my colleagues and I in the U.S. Senate will.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>The letter was sent to OpenAI&#8217;s Sam Altman, Anthropic&#8217;s Dario Amodei and Meta&#8217;s Mark Zuckerberg.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Sanders cited previous statements<\/strong> from each company saying they would stop or pause development if their AI systems became too risky to safely control.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;At a moment when we have seen human loss of control and the creation of potentially dangerous viruses, your companies are still racing ahead \u2014 investing tens of billions of dollars into a technology that nobody can fully understand, predict or control,&#8221; Sanders said.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The big picture: <\/strong>Rapid advances in AI capabilities have sparked newfound alarm in recent weeks after researchers <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/08\/06\/ai-virus-designed-bacteria-viruses\" target=\"_blank\">used<\/a> AI to develop new viruses and Meta, OpenAI and Anthropic all reported incidents in which models went rogue. Sanders cited both developments in his letter.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Last week, OpenAI <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/08\/07\/openai-astra-model-delay-cybersecurity-risks\" target=\"_blank\">chose to slow down<\/a> the release of its latest model Astra.<\/li>\n<li>More than 1,200 employees at leading AI companies <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/07\/30\/ai-safety-slowdown-anthropic-openai\" target=\"_blank\">are calling for<\/a> the U.S. government to support an international effort to pace AI development.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Between the lines:<\/strong> AI legislation, especially efforts led by a progressive like Sanders, is unlikely to garner enough support in this Congress to become law.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The bottom line: <\/strong>Look to messaging bills and public pressure campaigns for now \u2014 and, if Democrats retake either chamber, congressional investigations and subpoenas to hold tech CEOs accountable.<\/p>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is urging leading AI CEOs to pause AI development, warning that lawmakers will step in if no action is taken. Why it matters: Sanders is upping the ante on the AI industry ahead of the elections, building on his progressive playbook that is shaping how some candidates message around the issue&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36575,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/images.axios.com\/BRXodruI2PwAUUVnzRZuCUwI--w=\/0x0:7019x3948\/1366x768\/2026\/08\/09\/1786313524085.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-political-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/36575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}