US Senator Bernie Sanders calls for a pause in the rapid development of artificial intelligence and urges the United States and China to negotiate a treaty to ban “superintelligence.” He directs his request to President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping during an upcoming summit, saying the risk warrants action before the technology advances further.
The remarks come after a separate, high-profile push from major AI leaders. NDTV reports that the day before Sanders spoke, CEOs from Anthropic, OpenAI and xAI—Daario Amodei, Sam Altman and Elon Musk—agreed on a rare public message urging a slowdown in AI development. While Sanders advocates a government-level treaty targeting superintelligence, the tech leaders’ call is framed as a developmental pause or slowdown rather than a specific ban.
Taken together, the coverage reflects a broader debate over AI risk and governance: Sanders focuses on international commitments between governments, while the AI CEOs’ positions emphasize halting or slowing progress through industry and policy coordination. Different outlets frame the same developments—Sanders’ political appeal and the prior slowdown call by leading companies—as part of an emerging push to manage AI advancement.
