Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, never shy about proclaiming his socialism, positions himself as a warrior battling evil capitalists in the name of “Big Tech.” Yet what few noticed about the anti-AI bill he announced yesterday is that he’s fallen for their marketing, a blow to the senator’s intellectual credibility. 

On Thursday, Sen. Sanders alongside Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX) introduced the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act, which called for the banning of developing or deploying any artificial intelligence equal to or exceeding human capabilities.

In a video accompanying the legislation, Sanders leaned hard into AI fearmongering: we’re losing control; AI can break out of contained environments, expose weaknesses, even hack. Cue the mental images of evil Terminator robots. The reality, however, is that many of these claims are, in part, a marketing pitch. How do people know certain AI products are the best on the market? Because they’re capable of doing bad things. 

Don’t believe me? Just ask Vice President JD Vance, Hugging Face CEO Clem Delangue, whose startup was just acquired by NVIDIA, or top Wall Street Journal tech reporter Parmy Olson, or Jensen Huang the CEO of NVIDIA.

The basic logic goes something like this. By AI CEOs equating their products with existential risk, they signal scale, inevitability, and unmatched capability, without listing any actual feature. The message is simple and potent: if this technology could end civilization, it must be powerful enough to transform your business. That turns a supposed talk about safety into a premium marketing strategy, simultaneously reassuring buyers, attracting top talent, and keeping regulators and investors locked onto the tech labs’ own preferred timelines and controls.

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Despite the doom-laden rhetoric, today’s AI systems remain narrow, but powerful tools, optimized for pattern recognition and prediction. Contrary to what many assume, they are not autonomous agents with desires, self-preservation instincts, or human-like consciousness. That kind of technology is decades away, at least according to researchers. It’s more accurate to describe what we call “AI” as massively complex “if-then” trees that communicate in human language rather than traditional computer code.

Now back to Sanders. He fell for “Big Tech” marketing with what may be one of the dumbest bills ever introduced. His legislation calls for outlawing the development and deployment of any artificial intelligence equal to or exceeding human capabilities, a definition so broad it could theoretically sweep in the software behind basic computers, smartphones, and other everyday technologies we all rely on, with violations carrying up to 20-year prison sentences.

For a man who built his brand on skepticism of corporate power, Sanders has done something remarkable: he’s let the very executives he claims to distrust write his policy priorities. Far from being helpful, his bill would be the fastest track toward turning America into a backward society while the rest of the world races ahead, leaving us to one day realize our mistake and spend the better part of decades trying to catch up.

Americans should remember: we may be on top now, but that’s a position we must continually fight to keep. We can’t put ourselves on pause and expect the rest of the world to do the same.