Bernie Sanders Urges CEOs to Pause AI Development

US Senator Bernie Sanders has urged the CEOs of leading AI companies to pause the development of artificial intelligence (AI), warning that he and other senators could step in if they fail to take action, Axios reported.

In a letter sent to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Sanders called on the companies to halt AI development over concerns about the technology's safety and potential risks.

"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," Sanders wrote in the letter, which was shared with Axios.

Sanders warned that if the CEOs fail to take appropriate action, he and other senators could intervene.

Axios reported that Sanders cited previous statements from the companies in which they said they would stop or pause AI development if the technology became "too risky to safely control."

"At a moment when we have seen human loss of control and the creation of potentially dangerous viruses, your companies are still racing ahead — investing tens of billions of dollars into a technology that nobody can fully understand, predict or control," Sanders said.

In his letter, Sanders pointed to two alarming developments, including the use of AI to develop viruses and instances in which AI models from Meta, OpenAI and Anthropic reportedly behaved unexpectedly or went rogue.

Recently, OpenAI paused the development of its upcoming Astra AI model over critical cybersecurity risks.