US lawmakers propose creation of AI department

Democratic US Senator Bernie Sanders and Republican Representative Greg Casar have introduced a bill aimed at regulating artificial intelligence, with the proposal envisaging the creation of a Department of Artificial Intelligence and a temporary halt to the development of “artificial superintelligence” until regulations are developed by the new agency, AP reports.

The report said some employees of AI companies have expressed support for the bill; however, the legislation is reportedly unlikely to pass the Senate, where Republicans hold a majority, despite one of its sponsors being a member of the party.

“It doesn’t take a genius to say, ‘slow it down,’” Sanders, an independent from Vermont, told AP. “Do we really want to develop a super intelligence that when it becomes smarter than human beings could act independently of human control? I don’t think we do.”

Congress has so far taken limited action to regulate the AI industry, even as some prominent technology executives have warned of potentially catastrophic risks.

President Donald Trump has opposed recent calls for greater government oversight, putting him at odds with technology leaders including Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and xAI founder Elon Musk.

The legislation would permanently prohibit artificial superintelligence, defining it as a system that exceeds human cognitive abilities or has sufficient capabilities to plan and carry out the destruction or disempowerment of humanity.

Violations could result in substantial penalties, including prison sentences of up to 20 years in some cases.

Several current AI industry employees and experts have endorsed the legislation, according to a statement shared with AP.

Juan Felipe Cerón Uribe, a researcher with OpenAI’s Safety Systems team, said: “superintelligence could either go extremely right or extremely wrong” and that “we shouldn’t be playing such games.”

Swante Scholz, a software engineer at Google DeepMind who stressed that he was not speaking on behalf of his employer, said the current development trajectory could have a “most likely outcome” of “an existential catastrophe for humanity.”

“A ban on superintelligence development would be a positive change for the foreseeable future,” Scholz added.

By Bakhtiyar Abbasov