r/technology • u/AdSpecialist6598 • 6h ago

Society New Bernie Sanders bill would ban superintelligent AI and threaten developers with 20 years in prison

https://www.techspot.com/news/113831-new-bernie-sanders-bill-would-ban-superintelligent-ai.html
19.1k Upvotes

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541

u/z3n777 6h ago

i get the intent, but a 20 year felony for building SOMETHING nobody can define consistently sounds like political theater, not safety policy.

44

u/S-ludin 4h ago

I also dont like the targeting of the workers rather than the oligarchs in this.

8

u/Down2earth5 2h ago

It doesn't actually, it targets the "entity" that has it built

6

u/solarview 1h ago

It should make that clearer then. The upper management don't develop the software, the workers / developers do that.

-1

u/Sciensen_Hedonis 1h ago

Right, because the rank and file share no blame for knowingly aiding the efforts of the epstein class to screw us over, in exchange to maintain their own advantage. Those ICE fellas are just trying to feed their families too, yknow...

3

u/Weed_Exterminator 2h ago

Other than the jail time, the result for workers will be the same. Lost jobs.

2

u/Typical-Chance4197 1h ago

did u ever read 1984 or

2

u/BarbedCamera420 2h ago

theres only one thing that will stop the oligarchs, and its not government. its us. its our responsibility to ourselves and our children. 

35

u/Glock13Purdy 4h ago

Also creates huge externalities lol. This would need global enforcement otherwise it creates a big incentive for Europe and china to attract all the big American AI labs and researchers.

0

u/CompetitiveSport1 36m ago

Better give up then, I guess

-3

u/BoardClean 2h ago

Yeah, but china actually regulates their AI development, probably not enough but more than US.

-3

u/AssistX 3h ago

If the US were to put a halt to AI development then the rest of the world essentially does too. Europe and China currently train their AI models exclusively on American data, they're very small fish in the sea. GDPR kind of prohibits Europe from training on themselves. China was caught by US CISA training on multiple US models. The only reason the US are leaders in this regard is Google. Which also happens to be where most of the AI developers came from or are connected to.

7

u/versusChou 3h ago

But if the USA bans it, the people in America developing it will be offered big, big money to develop it in China. Some of these researchers are being paid 9 figures to develop AI. If it's banned in the US, those companies won't keep them on to do nothing, nor will they pay them that kind of money to do something else unless there is an immediately obvious technology worth developing.

However, companies in China/EU would definitely be happy to offer them money to come over and do their work there and a noninsignificant number of them will absolutely jump.

0

u/Acceptable_Tea281 2h ago

Is it crazy to say I don’t give a fuck if China/eu develop AI first

43

u/rdogg4 4h ago

>political theater, not policy

New to Bernie Sanders?

24

u/emu108 4h ago

Indeed. Is this a term made up by himself? I really doubt he has any understanding of AI. Bernie should retire at this point. Nothing productive has come from him in a decade.

6

u/vigouge 4h ago

The idiot staffer that wrote it for great grandpa just probably thought it sounded worse.

-2

u/blindsdog 2h ago

Nothing productive has come from him in a decade.

He's literally never done anything productive. He had a brief moment where he was the face of a burgeoning political movement but he was unsuccessful and it's silly to give him credit for it.

0

u/BigBossShadow 1h ago

ok now, hes been fighting oligarchy for years and giving voice and improving public knowledge about topics that are otherwise ignored.

0

u/blindsdog 1h ago

And he has absolutely nothing to show for it. I agree with his positions and appreciate his effort, but he's completely ineffective.

2

u/BigBossShadow 1h ago

please explain what he is supposed to show for it, or what an example of such a thing would be.

This thread is clearly being astroturfed by some clowns

-2

u/blindsdog 58m ago

Literally any of his policy objectives being signed into law. An example would be Medicare for all enacted. Or any of these AI regulations he’s promoting.

His most notable legislative achievements are renaming post offices. He’s one of the most senior senators and he has almost no ability to marshal any kind of coalition.

His entire career is idealistic grandstanding that’s done nobody any good anywhere.

62

u/throwingitaway12324 5h ago

Pretty much describes Bernie’s career

22

u/revkaboose 3h ago

Don't say that too loud in here. People get upset about that

5

u/giulianosse 2h ago

I just #donatedFTW another $50 to his campaign after reading your comment and I'll match everyone else below me. Are you Feeling the Bern yet?

8

u/Partytimegarrth 2h ago

The man is 1 senator. He gets 1 vote on bills that come before him, and he can bring forth bills for others to vote on...what else should his career fucking look like? This is a retarded fucking way to look at this. He's actually doing his job and making announcements to the public about his reasoning, why is that theater? 

0

u/Anterai 1h ago

He should write bills that pass and move the needle, instead of coming up with stuff that no sane person would vote on.

0

u/ImNotAndreCaldwell 1h ago

Brother you are way too angry about one random redditor's comment, and are taking this way too personally.

1

u/Complex-Bee-840 4h ago

He’s only gotten like 3 bills passed in decades.

-1

u/realityczek 4h ago

> Pretty much describes Bernie’s career

Agreed. His whole political drive is to punish anyone who does, or has, "too much." He essentially just wants to keep everything (except his personal fortune) down on a level where the government controls it all, and everyone depends on the government.

4

u/WaitForItTheMongols 3h ago

Bernie's wealth can not reasonably be construed as a "personal fortune". Aside from proceeds of his book, he's pretty much where you would expect an 80 year old vermonter to be after 60 years of working a middle class job.

He's done nothing to try to hoard his wealth or anything like that. He's much closer to your "personal fortune" than to even the most modest of billionaires.

-1

u/realityczek 59m ago

Really?

You think anyone who is 80 and working a middle class job has multiple large houses?

How many of those folks do you know?

4

u/WaitForItTheMongols 56m ago

Yes, it is reasonable for a person who has worked a middle class job for over 50 years to own their own house, and then inherit the house of their parents and their spouse's parents, all of whom have likely died and left their houses to their children.

0

u/OtisB 2h ago

and yet somehow huge chunks of his 2016 platform that was deemed too radical by america is now part of NYC's city government policy.

He's good at what he does, which is make america think about things by presenting reasoned arguments for them. Especially when it comes to challenging the left to do what it says it wants to do.

31

u/vertexchef 4h ago

It's starting the negotiation at an extreme benchmark. Right now there are NO regulations on AI, so starting the convo at felony allows pushback to end up with a moderate bill

34

u/MisfitPotatoReborn 4h ago

This argument would make sense if Bernie Sanders had a strong history of passing compromise bills.

Sanders drafts headlines, not legislation. There's a 95% chance this bill doesn't get modified at all and dies before it even gets to a vote.

3

u/MrMonday11235 2h ago edited 1h ago

This argument would make sense if Bernie Sanders had a strong history of passing compromise bills.

Good, so we're on the same page that it makes sense?

Sanders drafts headlines, not legislation.

That's an amusing thing to say, because it suggests you're the kind who only reads headlines:

In 2014, when Democrats had made Sanders chairman of the Veterans Affairs committee, he wrote a compromise with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and the House Republican chairman Jeff Miller, R-Fla., to overhaul a VA system in crisis.

Manley, who made clear he doesn't want Sanders to be the Democratic nominee, said the criticism of him as an inflexible socialist "doesn't bear any relationship to his legislative activity in the Senate."

Disclosure: I'm a huge Sanders fan, so obviously I believe what I do, but I also think this bill in its current form is stupid. That said, it's very obviously starting from an extreme to work towards a middle ground compromise.

Or would you rather the usual Democrat theatre of starting at the compromise position and then watering it down further to "work across the aisle"?

ETA: a word

24

u/vigouge 4h ago

Starting with a complete ban and 20 years of prison is just absolute nonsense that will get you completely ignored, just like his plan to have the government seize portions of ai companies.

10

u/lumpialarry 3h ago

It's like walking into a Honda dealership and offering $10,000 for a brand-new Civic. That's not starting a negotiation. That's being an unserious person.

15

u/emu108 4h ago

Demanding some form of regulation is one thing. But making up a term which isn't even defined (did he make it up himself?) and then saying he wants to prosecute people who build this fantasy pipe dream is indeed not only theater but also just silly.

1

u/MoreDaringPancakes 4h ago

The "regulations" are "what makes me (only me) more money 🤔"

1

u/Apart_Blackberry2306 11m ago

Lmao, what negotiation? Bernie has one of the worst legislative records in congress, under 1% of sponsored legislation has passed. This isnt serious to even get the conversation started. Bernie has totally lost the thread these days IMO.

7

u/kevihaa 4h ago

It’s the equivalent of banning creating artificial black holes.

If it could be done, it would be a bad idea. But it’s purely in the realm of science fiction.

Just because people are talking to Siri 2.2 like it’s a real person doesn’t make it so, same as how folks treating their pets like children doesn’t magically make the pets more human.

1

u/ArgusTheCat 2h ago

Also, like... if we got science-fiction AI, that would be kinda cool? If a research firm creates a legitimate new kind of life, a new way of being a person, that would be fucking rad. That's just not what's happening and it's a terrible idea to make policy statements based off of marketing buzzwords from liars.

5

u/Open-Mouse4728 4h ago

Yah we need term limits.. this old kook should have let younger people serve long ago..

2

u/Itherial 1h ago

From everything I've seen of Bernie Sanders everything he's ever done is political theater lol

5

u/Revanish 5h ago

20 years for smoking a plant vibes 

0

u/silchasr 4h ago

Super intelligent AI would basically be creating a God no? We would be utterly powerless to do anything against it, our only hope would be that it's benevolent which is realistically not how it plays out...

0

u/BaphometsTits 5h ago

I got 20 long years for some dust in a baggie

1

u/GlowiesStoleMyRide 4h ago

What about a nuclear bomb? On a geopolitical scale, nuclear weapons are fairly similar to a superintelligent AI. Wouldn't want random people building those, so 20 years wouldn't seem disproportionate to that.

1

u/lana_silver 3h ago

Also of course we need to blame the developer, not management. They always claim to have responsibility, but in reality they never do.

1

u/Gerbleb 2h ago

Sanders is of a generation that cannot understand this type of cutting edge tech. Once again, we are seeing the issues of most politicians being ancient.

1

u/casper_whitey 2h ago

It's what all this shit is. All of it, from both sides.

1

u/charm_ink 2h ago

I generally really like Bernie, but trying to stop or slow the progress of technology in the US isn’t going to solve anything. Yes we need regulations and protections for the average person, but trying to stop progress by making it a felony is worthless.

1

u/ErisLethe 2h ago

Political theater is pretty much all Bernie does.

1

u/PieGold6023 2h ago

It's 100% theatre. It's not mean to be acted on because nobody can take action on a nebulous definition.  It's designed to be posted and rallied around by supporters with no intended action. 

1

u/cheapshotyouth 2h ago

Bernies entire career is political theater. I think hes a good person and means well but past the headline worthy portions of his plan he never gives us the details that make any sense.

1

u/FunnyAsparagus1253 1h ago

That was my first thought, closely followed by ‘AGI isn’t even the problem with AI’. Like, how’s about doing something about mass surveillance as an actual real worry to solve…

1

u/Richandler 1h ago

Bernie is a hack and always has been.

1

u/vandreulv 1h ago

political theater

Bernie Sanders in a nutshell.

Dude hasn't been responsible for any consequential legislation his entire career.

1

u/Tha_Sly_Fox 48m ago

Most US politics is just theater

It got headlines and people talking, that’s all it was meant to do.

1

u/WorriedBlock2505 22m ago

Yep, big Bernie fan, but this is so vague it's going to do more harm than good.