Political opposites unite in Washington to rein in AI

What happened

Bipartisan pressure to rein in artificial intelligence is building across the US. At a Washington conference, political opposites found common ground, while OpenAI backed its first concrete safety bill. In back-to-back speeches at the Pro-Human Assembly in Washington, democratic socialist Bernie Sanders and MAGA architect Steve Bannon both called for tighter limits on artificial intelligence, the New York Times reports.

Why it matters

"When you are racing towards a cliff, you hit the brakes," Sanders said. The country is at "a dangerous and unprecedented moment in world history," he added. The conference, hosted by the nonprofit Future of Life Institute, drew several hundred people and brought together an unusual coalition of Republicans and Democrats, evangelical Christian, Mormon and Catholic leaders, plus artists. " There's no consensus on the path forward. I.

" Representative Lori Trahan, Democrat of Massachusetts, said: "I can't believe I have to say this. The future we all want is human. " Ashley Judd spoke for the union SAG-AFTRA about AI abuse imagery and disinformation, while parents of teenagers who died by suicide after forming relationships with chatbots delivered tearful appeals.

Sanders has introduced a bill to pause data center construction and called for a deal between Trump and Xi Jinping to ban superintelligent AI. Bannon doesn't believe legislation will do the job and wants a presidential executive order instead. "American citizens are not going to be supplicants to the oligarchs anymore," he said. " The White House stands against all of this.

What to watch

President Trump has called fears about the technology a "hoax" and threatened AI chiefs with criminal action for harms caused by their systems. Meanwhile, Politico reports that OpenAI supports a key provision of the FRONTIER Act, introduced by Jay Obernolte, Republican of California, and that same Lori Trahan. The bill would create the first federal framework for AI safety and force leading labs to bring in independent verification organizations (IVOs).

The requirement applies only to companies above high revenue and compute thresholds. " It's the first time OpenAI has backed a concrete federal mandate for outside safety auditors. The company had earlier supported a California bill, and CEO Sam Altman agreed to bring in outside auditors voluntarily, responding to Anthropic chief Dario Amodei.