Bernie Sanders is an independent United States Senator from Vermont who caucuses with the Democrats. Across 2026 he became the most active congressional voice on two distinct AI questions that he treats as one: who owns the returns from AI, and whether advanced development should continue at all. His positions sit at the restrictive end of the federal debate on both counts, and he has pursued them through legislation, opinion writing, and convening.
Public ownership of AI equity
Sanders proposed a federal sovereign wealth fund tied to the stock performance of frontier AI developers, reported June 2, 2026, framed against several developers moving toward public listings. The proposal drew mixed reactions in AI-policy circles and had no bill text at that date (Source: insideaipolicy.com).
He sharpened the position in a June 1, 2026 New York Times op-ed, "A.I. Belongs to the People, Not to Billionaires," previewing the American A.I. Sovereign Wealth Fund Act. The proposal would create a federal sovereign wealth fund through a one-time transfer of roughly 50 percent of the equity of the largest American AI developers to the public, on the argument that "all Americans should have a stake" in a technology "built on humanity's collective knowledge" (Source: nytimes.com). Coverage characterized it as a call to nationalize AI stock (Source: broadbandbreakfast.com). Structurally it is an up-front partial nationalization rather than a fund that accumulates equity over time; see AI Dividends (Universal Basic Capital, Digital Dividend, Global Dividend).
He translated the position into legislation on June 22, 2026, introducing a bill to create a seven-member independent commission to steer AI development and channel industry profits to the public through a sovereign wealth fund seeded with stock from covered companies (Source: insideaipolicy.com).
The idea converged with an executive-branch version pursued on different terms. Sanders discussed the sovereign-wealth-fund concept with Sam Altman on June 3, 2026, and on June 8, 2026 he and President Trump both publicly pressed for Americans to capture a share of AI-generated wealth while disagreeing on the means (Source: axios.com). The administration's version is framed as firms voluntarily ceding shares; Sanders's is a statutory transfer. See AI Public Wealth Fund and Government Equity in AI.
Prohibition and pause
On September 3, 2026 Sanders and Representative Greg Casar (D-Texas) announced the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act, which would permanently prohibit AI systems that surpass human intelligence, that can overthrow human governments, or that can subvert shutdown commands; pause advanced AI development until a new cabinet-level federal AI agency establishes safety rules and a model review process; and direct the United States to pursue international agreements against superintelligence development. Penalties are framed by analogy to nuclear-weapons law, with a corporate death penalty and up to twenty years' imprisonment for individuals (Source: sanders.senate.gov). ControlAI has said it consulted on the framework behind the announcement (Source: blog.controlai.org).
Sanders scheduled a private bipartisan briefing for senators on September 16, 2026, from 4 to 5 p.m. on Capitol Hill, to discuss what he called the "extraordinary dangers" that AI poses for humanity. Geoffrey Hinton, Future of Life Institute co-founder Max Tegmark, and Ajeya Cotra — one of the independent researchers who investigated the OpenAI–Hugging Face incident — are to attend. In a Dear Colleague letter reported by Axios, Sanders pointed to the resignation of an Anthropic safety researcher and wrote that "Congress needs SERIOUS discussions about this issue" (Source: axios.com). See Jacob Coxon.
At the Future of Life Institute's Pro-Human Assembly in Washington on September 15, 2026, Sanders told nearly 300 people that he would introduce the superintelligence ban with Casar the following week; as of that date it had been announced but not introduced. "Despite living in a so-called democracy, the public has had virtually no input into the AI revolution that's transforming the world," he said. "Congress, under both Democratic and Republican control, has been asleep at the wheel, and we now have a president whose ignorance regarding this issue is truly embarrassing." He told NPR's Morning Edition the same day that AI development is on a "runaway path and we've got to control it," and said he hoped President Trump and Xi Jinping would negotiate a treaty to pause advanced AI development when they met at the White House the following week. Steve Bannon spoke directly after him (Source: npr.org). He told reporters the same day that he expected to release text for the bill the following week (Source: rollcall.com). See Coordinated slowdown proposals compared.
Ahead of the roundtable Sanders hosted on September 16, 2026, Sen. Elizabeth Warren called for an immediate pause on advanced AI development but stopped short of the superintelligence ban, breaking with Sanders on that element. The account of her position describes the Sanders proposal as pairing a pause with a ban on superintelligence and threatening up to 20 years in prison for violations, which its authors compare to the penalties for illegally developing nuclear weapons, and notes that the two senators' AI tax plans differ, Warren proposing to tax AI companies and Sanders proposing government equity stakes in them (Source: axios.com).
Sanders and Casar unveiled the bill on September 23, 2026, defining artificial superintelligence as a system that exceeds human cognitive ability or has sufficient capabilities to plan and execute the destruction or disempowerment of humanity, and providing for a pause on the most advanced systems until a new Department of Artificial Intelligence sets federal safety rules (Source: usnews.com).
Labor, data centers and surveillance
Sanders has framed AI primarily as a labor question. He has stated that "AI oligarchs do not want to just replace specific jobs. They want to replace workers," a formulation that anchors the cross-ideological alignment described in AI Political Cleavages as the Bernie-to-Bannon coalition (The AI Backlash Could Get Very Ugly — Lila Shroff (The Atlantic, May 13 2026)). See AI Labor Disruption.
He co-sponsored a federal data-center moratorium proposal with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, part of the 2026 wave of siting restrictions traced in Data Center Siting / AI Power Politics and AI Data Centers. On surveillance, he wrote in August 2026 that "Flock has installed nearly 100,000 cameras across America to track your every movement," one strand of a bipartisan opposition that also produced H.R. 9800 in the House (Source: axios.com). See AI and Surveillance.
He separately defended a Capitol Hill event he hosted with Chinese government-linked AI scientists, framing it as preparation for anticipated U.S.–China presidential negotiations on existential AI risk.
Relationships
- related: Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act (announced 2026) — Senate sponsor.
- related: Greg Casar — House counterpart on the superintelligence ban.
- related: AI Dividends (Universal Basic Capital, Digital Dividend, Global Dividend), AI Public Wealth Fund and Government Equity in AI — the redistribution-via-ownership proposals he originated in Congress.
- related: AI Political Cleavages, AI Backlash — the political alignment his positions anchor on the left.
- related: ControlAI — consulted on the superintelligence-ban framework.
- related: AI Pre-Release Vetting — the model review process his proposed agency would run.