Sen. Bernie Sanders is calling for a complete pause in AI development. 

In a video posted to social media Monday, the Vermont senator said he had sent letters to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg demanding a halt to AI development. Sanders cited what he described as the technology’s potentially “cataclysmic” consequences, including the creation of new computer viruses, the possibility of biological weapons, and the broader sense that the technology is advancing beyond human control. 

What Sanders misses, of course, are the immense benefits AI can, and has already delivered, benefits that likely outweigh the risks. Like any new technology, AI is a morally neutral tool whose consequences depend on how it is used. That is precisely why the United States, a morally conscious nation, should lead the AI frontier rather than surrender its position to China, and Sen. Sanders likely has few qualms about.

There is also reason to believe that apocalyptic predictions from people within the AI industry can fuel public interest in the technology and boost demand for the very products these executives are warning about. After all, they have every incentive to play into fears of Terminator-style robots taking over city streets, fear generates attention, attention generates investment, and investment helps cement their dominance in the industry.

"Dear Mr. Altman, Mr. Amodei, and Mr. Zuckerberg, almost every day there is a news story about how your companies are losing control of the AI technology you are developing with potentially cataclysmic results," the Vermont senator's letter reads. "This week we learned, frighteningly, that AI has been used for the first time ever to create new viruses. As you know, this type of development in the wrong hands could lead to new bioweapons that result in the deaths of tens of millions of people."

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Yoshua Bengio, the most cited living scientist in the world, said these incidents, "should serve as a wake-up call." I agree. So do the top scientists at the companies you lead, the very people building this technology. As you know, these technology leaders recently called for the international community to create a safety mechanism, a pause button, to avoid catastrophe. They warned there is, "a real risk that capability development rapidly accelerates beyond our ability to understand or control the resulting systems." And yet, 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.

"That is absurd, irresponsible, and extremely dangerous," Sen. Sanders' letter continued. "It is also a betrayal of your own stated commitments. In 2023, Anthropics said it would, 'commit to pause the scaling and or delay the deployment of new models whenever our scaling ability outstrips our ability to comply with safety procedures.' In 2025, Meta said, 'if a frontier AI is assessed to have reached the critical risk threshold and cannot be mitigated, we will stop development.' That same year, OpenAI said it would 'halt further development,' until strong safeguards were in place if AI capabilities ever reached a critical threshold."

"That moment is here. AI capabilities have reached a critical threshold," Sen. Sanders added. 

"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. Let me be very clear. If you do not take appropriate action now, my colleagues and I in the U.S. Senate will." 

We can guarantee one way AI becomes catastrophic: placing responsibility for its survival in the inefficient, half-blind, and wasteful hands of government. Washington, D.C. has a long record of reacting slowly to new technology, regulating by headline, and empowering bureaucracies that often understand neither the science nor the consequences of the rules they impose. 

Whatever risks AI poses, the better path is to leave the hard work of understanding, managing, and solving them to the people who actually understand the technology, and to the discipline of the free market.