Sanders–Casar bill to ban artificial superintelligence

On September 23, 2026, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Representative Greg Casar (D-TX) unveiled legislation to ban artificial superintelligence. The sponsors have dubbed it the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act. It came one day after President Trump told the UN he would rename AI “Super Intelligence”, and six days before he signed Executive Order 14434.

What the bill would do

1. Ban artificial superintelligence permanently. It defines this as systems exceeding human cognitive ability or capable of planning humanity’s destruction or disempowerment.
2. Pause advanced SI development until federal safety guidelines are in place.
3. Create a federal Department of Artificial Intelligence to oversee advanced systems and approve their deployment.
4. Impose serious penalties: violations could carry up to 20 years in prison.

Supporters and opponents

The sponsors describe it as legislation to stop “AI oligarchs” from building machines humans cannot control. Sanders said: “It doesn’t take a genius to say, ‘slow it down.’” Several employees at leading labs, including an OpenAI safety researcher and a Google DeepMind engineer, publicly endorsed it.

Industry groups and the administration oppose heavier regulation, and the bill faces long odds in a Republican-controlled Congress.

Why it matters

Whatever its prospects, the bill puts the question of whether to build superintelligence on the congressional agenda, echoing the 2025 Statement on Superintelligence signed by Geoffrey Hinton, Yoshua Bengio and tens of thousands of others. It also highlights the naming problem: banning “superintelligence” is not the same as banning the “Super Intelligence” the government just named. See SI vs superintelligence.