Sanders Urges Trump, Xi to Negotiate AI Treaty

Sen. Bernie Sanders is urging President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping to negotiate a binding treaty that would pause development of advanced AI and ban artificial superintelligence, which he defines as systems smarter than humans and capable of operating beyond human control. A growing cross-partisan coalition, including former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, is calling for stronger safeguards to keep humans in charge of AI amid concerns about jobs, safety, concentrated technological power and risks including cyberattacks and biological misuse. Former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon has warned that rapidly advancing AI could threaten humanity, while Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and xAI CEO Elon Musk have supported slowing frontier-model development so safety research, testing and third-party evaluations can keep pace. Sanders has also introduced legislation seeking a permanent U.S. ban on superintelligent AI, although its full text has not been released. Trump has rejected calls for pauses or stricter limits, arguing that the United States leads China in AI, that restrictions could benefit China, and that his administration already has extensive criminal and regulatory authority over AI companies; he has also dismissed catastrophic warnings and criticized Amodei.