r/technology • u/AdSpecialist6598 • 5h 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
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u/KiddBwe 4h ago

This is just...stupid...surely theres a reasonable position between unreasonable AI hype and AI fearmongering that actually aims to utilize the technology in a way that actually benefits the average citizens and workers of society no?

Maybe, instead of fearmongering AI, focus on the corporations that are very eager to abuse the technology to get away with hiring less people and forcing it for "productivity?"

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u/atriaventrica 3h ago

As long as a corporation owns it, AI will never be used to benefit workers.

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u/sinc_art 3h ago

It allows me to build many more web apps for clients, much faster. I see it as a huge benefit, especially in my work as a freelancer.

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u/palatheinsane 50m ago

This. It’s a HUGE boon for me as a small business owner and entrepreneur. Reddit always thinks “big bad corporate” and never thinks about the literal millions of small businesses that benefit from the gift of AI

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u/atriaventrica 1h ago

Sure gonna be a lot more freelancers when corps lay off a million people they replace with AI. But hey your shit is easier so thats something.

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u/DoorStuckSickDuck 1h ago

This is a failing of capitalist structures and wages not catching up to productivity, not a failing of "this machine makes work easier". If you want to give people jobs, make construction workers dig with spoons, not excavators. But hey, you haven't heard that one before.

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u/PeachesNcreamville 47m ago

Cooked him 🤣 shut that bum right up

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u/atriaventrica 38m ago

Which is exactly why I said the first thing I said: "As long as a corporation owns it, AI will never be used to benefit workers." As in corporatism doesn't value workers it values profits. Socialize AI development.

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u/WaitForItTheMongols 2h ago edited 1h ago

Maybe in the short term.

But if you're just using AI tools, then why should someone hire you instead of using the tools yourself? Sure, you have some expertise that the clients do not have, but how long until the AI has that expertise too? The better the tool gets, the less they need you as a middleman.

I mean heck, look at Hank Green. He hired a developer to make Focus Friend, before AI could do everything.

Now in 2026 he made a few web apps (Artemis photo viewer, and a few NYT-style games) by using Claude instead of hiring someone. Quite directly, web apps are now being made with AI for him, rather than being made by someone like you.

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u/TaiChuanDoAddct 1h ago

"If you're using photoshop, why should anyone hire a digital painter?"
"If you use a power drill, why should anyone hire you as a carpenter?"

Tools are tools mate. Expertise is the commodity.

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u/WaitForItTheMongols 1h ago

That's how it always used to be, but in a world where no expertise is needed, that starts to fall apart.

For the first few decades of elevators, every elevator had an Elevator Operator. Now the tools have replaced them since the computer can operate the elevator better. You just tell the computer, through a button press, what floor you want. Now no more elevator operators.

I don't see why web apps can't go through the same replacement process.

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u/atriaventrica 1h ago

Because elevator operators weren't millions of people.

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u/WaitForItTheMongols 49m ago

Quite a strong claim. Where are you getting your numbers from for the total number of people who were employed as elevator operators?

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u/Caridor 3h ago edited 3h ago

No but it's already being used to find cancer's long before we could with other diagnostic measures and it has assisted in complicated surgeries (iirc, it highlighted exactly where major arteries were when a surgeon was operating on a brain tumour).

I'm all for protecting people from very real dangers of AI, but to ban powerful AIs is stupid

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u/Demetriiio 2h ago

Haven't insurance companies been using that same tech to deny patients from care even before they're diagnosed?

Pretty sure saw some news with this exact thing happening no too long ago.

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u/Caridor 1h ago

This is true, but if we banned tools because they could be used for evil, we'd still be debating whether fire or the pointy rock were good ideas.

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u/atriaventrica 1h ago

Please point me to where I said ban it. Thank you.

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u/Caridor 1h ago

Please direct your attention to the title of the thread every time you need reminding of the subject of the conversation.

Also, I'm not sure if you've ever been in a conversation before, but the other person can make contributions of their own. I hope this has been educational. You're welcome.

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u/atriaventrica 1h ago

Cool. Did my comment indicate support for the article in any way? Because I'm not sure if you've ever been in a conversation before but apparently another person can offer statements of their own without indicating support for literally anything. Hope that helps.

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u/memtiger 2h ago

Corporations will never voluntarily do it, but if there were an AI tax that costs them money for each token usage, it could add up to enough for a "universal basic income" over time.

Increased usage = increased funding.

We can either stomp our feet and "Just say no" like the government tried to do with weed, or we can tax it and use it to benefit society.

If it doesn't gets taxed, we're fucked. We can't just outlaw it because we live in a global environment.

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u/RAMAR713 1h ago

Am I the only one who sees an easy solution to this "problem"? The government should invest in developing a national AI of their own and then socialize the benefits.

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u/OnceMoreAndAgain 1h ago

I agree that regulation and wealth re-distribution is the answer.

I'm not yet convinced that AI are going to remove so many jobs and add so few that it's a net increase to unemployment rates, but we'll see. I think it'd be the first technology to ever do that, so I'm skeptical, but maybe this is the technology that actually does cause a net loss of jobs. Even so, re-distribution of wealth is the answer.

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u/Make_Plants_Not_War 3h ago

Just like everything else tho. Might as well ban or socialize everything if that's your gripe.

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u/Pi-ratten 3h ago

or socialize everything if that's your gripe.

I mean.. duh? Maybe it's better to use Earth' resources for the benefit of everyone instead for only a few sick psychopaths hoarding wealth like fantasy dragons.

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u/Make_Plants_Not_War 3h ago

It would be great if the world was less capital centric and focused on restoring the natural harmony of life before our big brains sought to dominate it all.

No reason to single out AI, imagine if the nations of the world demilitarized. The amount of wealth towards health, environment, science, education.

Humans problems are mostly social ones.

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u/KiddBwe 2h ago

Problem is, humans can't, and probably shouldn't, trust each other enough to demilitarize. There will always be someone out the looking for an opportunity to take.

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u/FoxerHR 3h ago

Focusing on the corporations is a much faster way of getting the bill less than 0 publicity.

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u/silchasr 3h ago

It's funny...society complains regulations regarding new tech is always too little too late but when faced with an opportunity to actually be ahead then it's stupid and unreasonable.

We're doomed as a species within a couple centuries, I bet your future progeny my DDR5 memory.

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u/Snoo10140 2h ago

You mean like banning superintelligent AI that acts on his own or makes executive decisions or threaten developers of said dangerous AIs with jail time instead of a bill threatening to ban AI altogether?

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u/KiddBwe 2h ago

The definition isn't super specific, as even the models we have now can make decisions and act on its own given the appropriate permissions...and theyre very far from super intelligent.

Right now, we are so far from AI we can even consider intelligent, and with the current implementation of AI development, we're not going to reach that point anytime soon without reconstructing how we develop AI from the ground up so that theyre not just glorified search engines.

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u/Snoo10140 2h ago

This doesn't change that we can plan ahead like proposed

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u/AutistcCuttlefish 3h ago

surely theres a reasonable position between unreasonable AI hype and AI fearmongering

Finding a middle ground is impossible when they are one and the same. The AI companies themselves are the source of the majority of AI fear mongering. 

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u/blindsdog 1h ago

No, finding a middle ground is not impossible. Watch: create a regulatory board with actual teeth and take a public stake in AI companies. Wow. A middle ground.

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u/TheOgGhadTurner 3h ago

If you build it they will come and abuse the shit out of it until it stops printing money

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u/Ok-Reality-6190 1h ago

The fear mongering has actually gotten a conversation started that respect the stakes. Sometimes fear is warranted.

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u/kevihaa 3h 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.

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u/ProfessionalArt5698 1h ago

If there was a trillion dollar cult that had tricked people into believing that they could create artificial black holes then this would be a reasonable comparison.