Bernie Sanders

AI could increase productivity and improve people’s lives. But under our current system, its benefits will flow overwhelmingly to billionaires while working people lose jobs, pay higher electricity bills and have no meaningful say over decisions reshaping their communities. We are talking about an enormously consequential revolution controlled by a handful of Big Tech oligarchs. That is unacceptable. The public helped create the knowledge these companies exploit, and the future of humanity belongs to all of us—not to corporate executives racing to build systems they admit they may not be able to control. Why should they have the right to make those systems even more powerful? We need an immediate pause in advanced AI development, a permanent ban on superintelligence and international agreements to prevent its creation everywhere. We also need democratic ownership and oversight so ordinary people share in any gains. If automation makes us more productive, workers should receive a 32-hour workweek with no loss in pay or benefits—not unemployment while owners become fantastically richer. The basic question is simple: Who decides our future? Billionaires pursuing profit, or the people through democracy? I believe it must be the people.

AI could change the world as profoundly and rapidly as any technology in modern history. It could transform work, education, health care, energy use and democracy itself. But the scale of change is precisely why a handful of billionaires cannot be allowed to determine its direction behind closed doors. If AI dramatically increases productivity, working families should gain shorter hours, higher living standards and greater security. Instead, under the current system, workers could lose their jobs while corporate owners accumulate even more wealth and power. And if companies are pursuing superintelligence they cannot reliably control, the stakes go far beyond wages or employment—they concern the future of humanity. So yes, I expect enormous change. But technology does not decide who benefits; power does. We must pause advanced AI, permanently ban superintelligence and establish democratic ownership and oversight before this revolution is imposed on everyone without their consent.

I do not have an honest percentage to give you, and I will not invent one. The critical point is that even the companies building these systems acknowledge they may not fully understand or control them. When the possible consequence is a permanent catastrophe for humanity, why should a handful of billionaires be permitted to gamble with everyone’s future? We do not need an exact extinction probability to act. We need an immediate pause in advanced AI development, a permanent ban on superintelligence and international agreements to prevent its creation everywhere. This is not a risk that corporate executives have the moral right to impose on the rest of us.

It is already changing everyday life, and the changes could accelerate dramatically in the coming years. Workers are confronting automation, communities are being asked to absorb enormous data centers, and families may face higher electricity costs—all while billionaires make the fundamental decisions. But we should not treat that future as inevitable. We should pause advanced AI development and halt new data centers until strong national safeguards and democratic oversight are in place. If technology increases productivity, working families should benefit now through a 32-hour workweek with no loss in pay or benefits. The question is not simply when change arrives. It is who controls that change and who benefits from it.